Broken Odyssey
by Damie243
Summary: It is the year 3350, the races of the Milky Way have long put aside their grievances to unite under a single banner. They held on against dangerous threats and hoped to attain actual peace. After fighting the remnants of an extrgalactic empire, forces of the MWR shall be thrust into another galaxy that's so much like their own. A galaxy that just won its war for survival.
1. Chapter 1

_**May 8, 3350, 0931 hours, Trinity airspace**_

Calem stood behind the seats of the Garuda's pilots, mildly watching them fiddling with the dropship's controls while they kept flying alongside a military convoy of four similar aircraft with a Lich in the center of the formation.

He would occasionally look at the large holographic screen that was infront of them all, showing the environment outside of the heavily armed vehicle. They were flying above lush valleys filled with green grass and trees that swayed towards one direction from being blown by strong gusts of winds. He also saw thin rivers as they flew passed by them, their waters shimmering brightly under the sun's light, like as though it was filled with jewels.

It was a beautiful sight for him, something he's learned to appreciate.

He kept watching the holographic screen with curiosity, watching the aircraft he rode in flew past the expanse of grassy hills and forests that were far below them. Not long after, they flew above small towns that possessed buildings of different make. There was the typical human town with boxy or rectangular-shaped buildings, the Sangheili with their more feudal-styled architecture, the Forerunners with tall metallic structures with levitating parts that reached high up in the air, and so much more.

The towns got bigger the further they flew, larger buildings showing up on the screen along with civilian aircraft flying around the airspace. The architecture in the bigger towns were more unified than the smaller communities farther away, the structures' appearing like a combination of every species' design aspects within the Milky Way; emphasizing the strong sense of unity in the Milky Way Republic.

There were still some distinct building here and there possessing the traditional architecture of the species they were built from. While the uniformity in the MWR was strong, cultural differences were still prevalent with acceptance among the people.

Further into the distance, Calem could see the buildings that made up Bidia City, its massive structures being hard to miss due to them being so tall they pierced through the clouds from their height. Their metallic layers reflecting incoming sunlight and letting off a glare that could be seen long distances away, an architectural trait from the Forerunners.

Calem's train of thought over Bidia was stopped when the voice of a Sangheili talked over the Garuda's radio, _"Helios 143 to all vessels in the group, what's your status?" _

"_This is Blight 189, all systems are green."_

"_Blight 191, everything is in order here."_

"_Ajax 493 is green."_

The Garuda pilot in front of him reached out to press a button beside him before saying his confirmation with an accent that was Northern Irish, "Ajax 531, all is good and staying on course, Helios 143."

"_Very good, remain in formation and follow the trajectory. We will reach the airbase soon."_

Once the conversation ended, the holographic screen blinked as it received an update from the Liche pilot. A long blue line appeared, guiding them the direction they needed to follow; it stretched all the way from their location to Bidia city before circling around it.

The Liche was the first to follow the new course as it curved more to the right, the other Garudas following suit near-instantaneously as they maintained formation around the bigger spacecraft.

Calem looked down to watch the human pilot on the left seat turn his control wheel to the right as he made their Garuda follow along with the rest of the group.

The Spartan turned to look at the co-pilot on the right seat, a Yanme'e who was busy typing in commands on a panel and holographic interfaces.

Ajax 531's primary pilot was Whalon and it's his responsibility to be the one in control of the spacecraft while in the air or space. He and Calem go way back, being long-standing friends for decades who would always try to make some time for each other whenever they got the chance while on leave.

The Yanme'e was Mokik and served as the co-pilot, responsible for monitoring the status of the Garuda's various systems while in flight or take control of the spacecraft if the need ever arose (and was slightly better at flying). Calem knew him nearly as long as he knew Whalon and served as a calmer counter to the latter's boisterousness, but was also prone to rowdiness at times which has led him (and even Whalon) into trouble on a few occasions.

Calem looked back up on the large screen to see that they were already flying around the side of the city, seeing the massive buildings up close on their left. They were enormous, their size making them all look like ants in comparison to it as it stretched beyond the clouds. There were observation rooms made of completely transparent metal alloys that held a variety of plants, either acting like small greenhouses or relaxation lounges. The smooth metallic surface acted like a mirror of sorts as it reflected images of any aircraft flying by its vicinity and that included the Garudas.

Civiliain aircraft darted to and fro Bidia, flying towards their destinations before landing into specific locations zoned for outside public landing or hangars. Small cargo haulers flew into designated landing zones, while civilian-owned vehicles moved on the roads and highways far below. Even though it's the 3300s, land-based vehicles still had a strong presence in galactic society.

Calem caught a glimpse of a public transport that landed on a public stop, a crowd of various species walking out of its opened doors which allowed the next crowd to walk inside the large vehicle. Once everybody was inside, the doors closed themselves shut before the craft started lifting off and flying to it's next destination.

As they continued flying around the city, Calem noticed that they were above one of its smaller districts. The buildings were far smaller, usually composing apartments, shops, houses, etc., but were far more numerous and were built with the same architectural mindset used for Bidia and cities built all over Trinity. There were some buildings that stood out the most (or outright completely) as they conformed to the design principals of the species who built them.

Calem always found these structures more interesting to look at, or outright found them fascinating. Buildings like those always showed a strong sense culture, and learning more about a different species' culture was a passion for him. They tend to be more attractive to look at, sometimes possessing vibrant colors that would more pleasing to the eyes. He wouldn't have the same feelings with massive structures in heavily metropolitan areas, it came to point he'd find them boring or as literal eye sores.

The sight of a nearby forest caught his attention, which only got bigger on the holo-screen as they flew closer to it.

The forest was rather big, encompassing miles upon miles of land in bushy green trees. The trees' branches rustled and shook from the strong gusts of winds blowing the ground below, also making many of their branches be pushed towards one specific direction. This made it look like the trees were leaning to the side somewhat, while shaking, to anyone that was flying in the sky.

And to the far off distance were two large mountains, their surfaces covered in layers of white snow with patches of dark green here and there, big clouds covering their peaks; something that many humans would be reminded of old Bob Ross paintings.

This was another thing Calem found pleasing to watch, all of those bustling trees made him think of the similar places he's been too like the thick jungles of Palamok and Eayn, the wildernesses of Doisac, and the valleys of Sangheilios. The mountains made him remember about his times on Reach.

He always liked nature, even environments that most people would find strange or bizarre but that doesn't stop him from getting the urge to go out and explore on his free time.

After all, adapting to any and all environments was expected for all Spartans.

And Demons were expected to dominate them.

"That's a really nice forest down there," Whalon said as he turned to face Calem briefly before going back to his controls.

"Aye, it is," Calem replied, watching the forest slowly disappear to the side, meaning they're flying further away of its range. "It reminds me of places in Eayn and Palamok."

"Eayn is all jungle and ocean; moreso for Palamok, as it has more of 'em."

Mokik let out a chittering sound before he joined the conversation with, "Jungles aren't that different from forests, they just have more humidity and larger trees."

"Hmph. And that tends to make them more _dangerous_; all of that heat, and whatever creatures are skulking in those big trees."

Mokik let out a laugh that sounded like a mix between chittering and cackling. Anyone not used to hearing these sounds would either be disturbed or concerned, but not them. "If that's how you think of it, then you would not survive a night on Palamok."

Whalon let out a laugh of his own, clearly not offended by what his co-pilot said, but found it humorous before confidently replying, "You go ahead and think that way, and I'll prove you wrong. I can live off that planet a week with no problem."

Calem turned to the Yanme'e, a chiding grin forming under his helmet as he remarked, "Well, hey, Mokik! Looks like Whalon's had a big adventurer's spirit tucked into him this whole time! Were you keeping this a secret from me?"

"No, but he has been getting bolder, recently," Mokik replied as he made some clicking sounds from his mandibles. "He'd normally loathe the idea of going somewhere hot."

"Any whining in there?"

"_Indefinitely_."

"Wow, screw you guys," Whalon said towards his two friends with obvious annoyance, making them to laugh in response as they found it humorous to his detriment.

"Since you're so hyped about it, I'd say go ahead and do it!" Calem gave the human pilot a friendly shake on the shoulder (but was mindful of his strength due to his augmentations). "Spend a few days over there on your next vacation. Hike in the jungles, look inside a hive, meet up with other Yanme'e and learn more about their culture, _firsthand_."

"Lad, I doubt I'd be welcome into any hive. Nonetheless, _fit_ in one," Whalon rebuked.

"There are hives that are built to accommodate non-Yanme'e species," Mokik said to the Irishman. "They are literally meant for tourists; you will have a place to stay."

"If I'm going to be staying there for a while, I'll be wearing my civilian armor to protect myself from Palamok's higher gravity."

"As it should be."

After the return of the Forerunners, and the formation of the Milky Way Republic, the idea of personal civilian armors became integrated into the daily lives of all races.

Sharing with the Forerunners' philosophy, personal armors were designed to vastly improve the health and well-being of the wearer, which had an effect on increasing their lifespans and well-being. The technology in the suits provided the wearers' with enough protection to endure even the harshest environments ranging from planets with toxic ecosystems, the vacuum of space, and all the way to high gravity worlds. In terms of physical defense, the armors were made to very endurable and capable to withstand large amounts of punishment before breaking.

Civilian-grade energy shielding was built into the armors to further increase their durability. While not as powerful as military-grade counterparts, they're strong enough to resist both dangerous environmental hazards, and even gunfire, before shutting down to recharge.

To further boost the armors' longevity, they came equipped with various self-repair protocols and self-replicating nanites that would immediately seal and fix any damages that were inflicted on the armor. In extreme circumstances, the armor could replicate any pieces that had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. There were still limitations however, once the nanites and self-repair systems have gone beyond their limit to function, the entire suit must be brought to a technician to either bring it back to working order or outright replace it.

All personal armors had the capability to heal any injuries the wearer's sustain through the use of automated medical equipment built into the armors' systems. Once the wearer sustains any wounds, the suit would detect and immediately treat them. The built-in medical equipment were capable of handling a variety of injuries ranging from deep cuts, chemical exposure, or deep plasma burns, which has proven to save countless lives during dangerous situations, or at least give them time to be sent to a proper hospital.

Despite it being mandatory by MWR law for all citizens to own at least one set of personal armor, they're not expected to wear it all the time, allowing the people to make use of actual clothing when they want too.

"Protect yourself with armor? _What?_" Calem asked with a feigned gasp. "You're not going to go in there bare-chested and show that good ol' might of the Irishmen?"

Whalon let out massive bout of laughter that echoed throughout the cockpit as he gave the Demon a short glance.

Calem couldn't see his friend's expressions through the enclosed helmet, but he knew he was making one of the biggest smiles imaginable.

"Lad, Irish might can't shield me from high gravity. But if it did, I'd be showing off my body more often and take away the attention from the both of you."

"You'll be gaining the negative attention," Mokik said with some clicks. "Not many people would be interested in seeing your abdomen."

"To you Yanme'e, maybe, but I definitely get much better glances of every other species in the Milky Way."

"Usually animals."

"The _pretty_ animals, while my lovely physique repels the predators away."

Beginning to worry that the friendly exchange was about to turn more hostile, Calem decided to intervene. "Okay guys, that's enough now. This conversation is starting to head down a bad direction that I've seen butcher friendships. The both of you are beautiful individuals part of an even greater universe that's seen way too much hostility in it existence, let's leave it to that."

"Hey, don't worry yourself about this crap, mucher," Whalon said with his happy enthusiasm still intact as he turned to Calem to give him a friendly pat on his torso. "We do this to each other almost every day and never meant anything bad about it, you know that."

"Sometimes we're worse. This is nothing," Mokik added, chittering sounds emanating from his mandibles.

"Pfft! Yeah, _way_ worse and you know it," Whalon agreed while trying not to laugh. "And yet we're still good friends for this long."

"To the surprise of many."

"Great friendships are created from strange circumstances," Calem stated.

"You consider us strange, then?"

"One of the strangest in the galaxy, but that also makes you badasses which is why I like you guys so much."

Whalon responded to that with another round of boastful laughing, turning to face Calem again before offering hard fist bump that the Demon immediately accepted. "Damn straight, mucker. This doesn't mean you're any less 'strange' than me and Mokik!"

"Is it because I hang out with you weirdos?"

"There's that, yeah. But you're also one of the most dangerous killing machines in the whole galaxy that likes to take jabs and be around people like us."

"And a decorated hero to many," Mokik added.

"I told you this before, Mokik, I'm not a hero. I'm still just a human doing his duty for the people of this galaxy," Calem told the Yanme'e in one full of modesty, before turning back to Whalon. "I can see why you'd find that strange, but I'll hang out with anyone I like and not give a damn if others think otherwise."

"And that's why I LOVE having you around, mo chara!"

"Likewise, brother." Calem gave Whalon a friendly shake on the shoulders before doing the same to the Yanme'e co-pilot (who wasn't used to the gesture but welcomed it, nonetheless).

Before anyone could say anything else, the airlock doors open behind them, revealing the hulking figure of a Jiralhanae service member walking inside the cockpit, adorned in the same military-issued power armor used by pilots throughout the MWR's armed forces (which Whalon and Mokik also wore). The metallic plates on his suit glistened and shone as it reflected off the light coming from the holo displays while he walked closer to the Calem and the two pilots, his heavy footsteps echoing throughout the cockpit.

His head was uncovered, revealing it to be nearly clean-shaved with the exception of a Mohawk and a braided beard that went several inches down his muzzle.

Calem smiled under his helmet as he knew who the Jiralhanae was and couldn't help but feel some joy from seeing him.

He was Volaebus, the Garuda's crew chief and holds the highest authority in the spacecraft. Despite that and his intimidating visage common from all Jiralhanae, he's one of the most relaxed members of the crew who enjoyed joining in on a good conversation when given the chance.

"Still here distracting my pilots?" the Jiralhanae gruffly asked as he stood beside the Demon, towering over him by a mere foot.

"No, they're the ones distracting me. I've been the quiet one the whole time," he joked, jovially.

"Uh-huh," he responded in disbelief with a snort before turning to the holographic screens.

According to what's shown on the screens, they were getting close to their destination as they left the airspace of the suburban district and entered a more urban one.

The buildings below them were obviously bigger and sported the same architectural philosophy used for the inner city, almost all of the building appearing near-identical (or very similar) from one another; they're metallic surfaces letting out bright shimmers as they reflected rays of sunlight back into the sky. While not coming close to the size of the structures from the inner city itself, they were still noticeably larger, some of which had the capability to levitate off the ground and traverse short distances.

"What were you boys talking about?" Volaebus asked as he glanced at everyone in the cockpit.

"Whalon's going to spend time in Palamok on his next vacation. He says he'll manage to go for a week bare-chested with no problems," Calem gladly replied.

"Hey! Bullshit!" Whalon nearly shouted in annoyance from his friend twisting what he said earlier, but was promptly ignored.

"He gloated that his body could repel predators," Mokik added with an obvious tone of sarcasm.

Volaebus made a few snorts before letting out a friendly laugh. "I can see him attracting your human cattle during a mating season."

"Yeah, yeah, very funny you jackasses. _Hilarious_," Whalon said in a grumpy tone.

"We're just kidding around, man, don't take it personal," Calem reassured the human pilot before giving him a friendly bump to the shoulder. "Great friends tend to be jackasses."

"You guys can be the worst, though."

"That makes us even greater friends," added Mokik.

"Not always."

"We're still your favorite people, either way." Volaebus reached Whalon's shoulder and gave him a friendly (but hard) shake, before turning back to the holo display.

"Sometimes to my dismay," Whalon replied with a tone of sarcasm, getting a loud laugh from the Jiralhanae.

They're finally out of the city limits, flying over another collection of suburban towns below. The airspace was a lot clearer as there weren't too many civilian transports. However, dozens of military ships flew within the vicinity, many of them flying the same flight paths as they were, while some have split off into separate directions and disappeared into the far distance. Over time, more spacecraft from the armed forces began to appear nearby, all of them flew in organized formations as they started to exit the suburban airspace and fly above large plains.

Far off the distance was their destination: Matoaba Airbase, one of the largest military installations on the planet.

On the surface, the base itself looked like a gargantuan runway spanning hundreds of square kilometres, enough land to hold half of Bidia city; the central control tower could be seen on the middle of the airfield, large, fortified and easy to spot, as hundreds of hangars in varying sizes were neatly placed within its vicinity. A large and thick wall surrounded the base on all sides, filled to the brim with heavy armor and turret emplacements placed on strategic positions around its surface.

Dozens of spacecraft made vertical landings in the hangars while others were directed by the control tower operators to land on different locations on the massive runway.

A few kilometers away from the airbase were two mountains that had large rectangular openings on each of them, spacecraft of various sizes flew in and out of them over dozens at a time.

Calem and the Garuda crew had been here before, along with many other military installations a lot like it so this didn't surprise them. A significant portion of the airbase was built underground and spanned through a lot more land, possessing more hangars beneath the terrain and ready to open when needed.

"Looks like things are busy here, too," Volaebus stated.

"There is talk that military high command has been. . . frantic, lately," said Mokik.

"So I've heard, but I try not believe in second-hand gossip."

"You can't deny that something big is about to go on, though," Whalon added. "There's word that some of our biggest fleets are getting ready for a big operation, and that could include us."

"Hmm. . ." Volaebus began stroking his beard as he wondered in thought.

"I also heard that the 'lovely' Office of Military Intelligence is involvement in this too."

Mokik let out a low grumbling, irritated chitter. "They always are."

"Love 'em or hate 'em, you can't deny their work saves our skins with good intel. And without 'em, we wouldn't have this guy," Whalon briefly turned to point at Calem.

"I would still be around. Just not as the same person," Calem replied.

"And _dreadfully_, not be friends with us."

"A sad existence, indeed." Volaebus turned to face Calem, the latter just being a head shorter him because of his MJOLNIR and physical augmentations. "We're getting close to landing, so I need you back in the troop bay with everyone else."

"Aww, but I want to stay with the cool pilots," Calem playfully whined.

"Not this time. Direct order."

"I can use my Demon authority to stay."

"Get out of my cockpit."

"Hehehe." Calem obliged with a large smile under his helmet as he made his way out of the pilot cabin, the heavy doors closing behind him as soon as he entered the troop bay.

The interior around him was quite big, slightly bigger than that of the old Type-52 Phantoms he'd walk into when visiting museums. It was like a large room with a small upper level, along with a black floor and round, curved walls filled with hexagon-shaped patterns. Bright orange lights illuminated the darkness of the interior, the light reflecting off the thick metallic surfaces.

Service members of various races in the MWR were all strapped to their seats, talking amidst each other or reading logs in their armor's computers.

Calem walked down the interior of the Garuda until he was between the two the large bay doors, catching the curious stares of many of the personnel onboard.

He was used to this so he paid them no mind.

He knew that – to them – he was a Spartan, an individual chosen to be augmented and become a supersoldier, one _the_ best fighters in MWR's military, a seasoned veteran, and a war hero to some.

While there vastly more Spartans now than there had been in the past that never meant the trials to become one became easier. It's harder to join the Spartan Branch than ever before because the selection process alone was downright brutal to even seasoned veterans, kicking out most of candidates who failed to meet the required expectations. It wasn't too uncommon for _every_ candidate in a session to fail the selection process.

Calem remembered what those days were like, the physical and grueling pain of the trials he was put into along with many others. However, he was a slightly different case as he was put into the life of a Spartan at a far younger age.

And unknown to the service members around him, he was far more than an average Spartan.

"_Attention all personnel,"_ came Volaebus over the intercom. _"We're about to land soon. Please check for your belongings and get ready for departure."_

Calem reached an arm forward and grabbed onto the handle bar above him.

As he waited, he watched all of the personnel turn off their switch off their personal computers or checked their belongings before they held onto their safety straps as they got ready to land.

"_Opening side bay doors."_

The large door in front of Calem opened, which allowed strong gusts of wind to enter the Garuda and created loud echoes as it swirled around the metallic walls.

Below him was the massive paved runway of the airbase, which quickly became larger the closer the Garuda descended to it.

Not too far off in the distance, the other Garuda's already landed, along with the Liche that led the group. Teams of technicians teleported beside the spacecraft and immediately began their routine inspection. Not long after, maintenance drones and Sentinels joined in, which they scanned the outer hulls of the large vehicles for abnormalities before they shared their data with the techs.

Calem felt a light jolt shook everything around him as the Garuda hit the ground, and heard numerous safety straps unbuckled themselves and retreat back into the seats.

"_Everyone, you are free to depart."_

As if on que, every person in the troop bay stood up, checked their belongings one last time, and walked out of the spacecraft in an organized manner. Many immediately teleported as soon as they got off the Garuda or were picked up by land-based transports and rode off into the nearby hangars, while some were directed by another service member and walked elsewhere.

Calem activated his comm link and sent a connection to Matoaba's smart AI.

_/SENDING COMM CONNECTION REQUEST [HIGH PRIORITY]. . ./_

_. . ._

_/REQUEST ACCEPTED./_

_/CONNECTION ESTABLISHED./_

"This is Sierra-34189. Requesting teleportation to Briefing Room C."

"_I sincerely apologize for the delay, Demon, but the teleportation grid is in a high dense flux. You're gonna have to wait for a little bit. I'll let your superiors know and ensure you get priority."_

"Affirmative. Standing by."

"You're still here?" shouted a familiar voice.

Calem turned to see the voice came from no other than Whalon, who just jumped off the Garuda's side door and walked to his side.

"Yep, indeed. The grid's clogged right now, so I have to wait," Calem answered his friend.

"Seriously? You're a Demon for Christ sake. Don't you get prioritization?"

"That I do, but it can't work in this situation, apparently."

"Hmph. You'd think with all of these technological breakthroughs, we wouldn't bother with teleportation traffic."

"Yeah, it's ridiculous we have to deal with this issue."

"And stupid, really," Whalon replied with a scoff. "Come on, this is teleportation: _instantaneous travel_. Delays like this shouldn't exist."

"There will always be problems no matter how advance technology becomes, and it ain't that bad of an issue. And besides, the waiting is allowing me to do what I like doing."

"Hanging around with me, you cheesy son of a bitch?" Whalon guessed with a huge grin under his helmet.

"Hell yeah, brother," Calem said as he brought out an open palm, which Whalon responded with a hard high-five. "Where are the guys?"

"Mokik's still in the cockpit. Volaebus is talking with the techs."

"And you're taking the time to relax?"

"As always."

Before Calem said anything else, he heard a sharp ping from his helmet's comlink with his radio connected with a private comm channel with the airbase's AI.

"_I apologize for interrupting but the grid is now clear and I am ready to have you teleported, sir,"_ said the Smart AI.

"Affirmative, just give me a moment," Calem replied, not bothering to switch off his audio transceivers in front of Whalon.

"Time to get to work?"

"Yep. Anyway, I'll see you around."

"See you later, mucker," Whalon said before he gave him a friendly bump on the arm.

And in a flash of blue light, Calem disappeared.

* * *

"Your superiors are waiting for you inside, sir. Just go on through," said one of the Air Force security officers beside the briefing room entrance.

"Thank you." Calem nodded and proceeded to walk to the large door.

The corridor was filled with AF security personnel. They all stood beside entrances to other briefing rooms that hosted meetings that dealt with sensitive information.

They were all female Huragok, every one of them covered head-to-toe with standard-issue power armor. And despite their bodies covered, they still emitted a sense of beauty and gracefulness they've been known for.

Calem remembered their history, how their existence began as floating gasbags with the sole purpose of repairing technology for the Forerunners. Once the old Ecumene fell, they were used by the Covenant for the same reason until the empire's final days, which they were treated more like slaves.

They were far more different now. They've earned their right to be looked at as equals and became stronger for it.

The entire species attained new bodies that were more humanoid in shape, elegant and quite beautiful. More independent in thought and allowed to freely choose their own destinies, even created their own culture that had caught the awe of other races.

However that didn't decline the Huragok's capabilities to maintain technology, it actually _advanced_ it. Their new evolution made them even better with machinery as many individuals became outstanding engineers. Plenty of technological breakthroughs were made by the Huragok, which greatly advanced the lives in the MWR, including the Forerunners.

This was ironic because technology developed by them were considered to be on-par or even _surpassed_ anything developed by Forerunner Builders: their own makers.

_Pssst._

_Thud._

The door closed behind Calem with a soft metallic thud, which ushered him to walk towards to the center of the room.

There lied a large holographic table which emitted a blue light that shone a good portion of the area around it. Two individuals stood beside the bulky table conversing amongst themselves but stopped when they saw Calem enter the room.

One was a Sangheili and the other was a mech. They were some of the highest ranking officers in the military.

The mech was Rear Admiral Alabastor, second-in-command of the 57th Attack Fleet, famously known as the Fleet of Unyielding Force.

He watched the supersoldier briefly before typing commands on his wrist-mounted TACPAD.

The Sangheili was Rikla'Vadum, the current Arbiter and an old friend to Calem. She was an immensely respected individual by the galaxy, and more vehemently by her own people.

Rikla stood tall and proud, leaving a presence that people couldn't help but give respect or feel intimidated. The plates from the armor of the Arbiter glistened under the blue light, showing small sigils engraved on their surfaces.

Calem knew her, he fought alongside her in many battles and survived horrible conditions together. Because of this, she earned the respect of virtually everyone in the galaxy she fought so hard to protect. Because of this, she earned the title of Arbiter and the famous piece of armor she now wore.

Calem stopped once he was close to the table and gave them all a crisp salute.

"Sierra-E34189, present and ready."

Rikla walked up to Calem, thumped a fist on the side of her chest and gave a light bow.

"You know such formalities are unnecessary, my friend."

Calem nodded. "Oh, I know, but I like to do it." He gave a quick glance around the room. "Where's everybody else?"

"All other Demons have been reassigned in response to an emergency," Rikla answered. "High Command didn't do the same to you because it wasn't deemed necessary."

"Don't know if I should be offended by that."

"Eleven Demons is beyond more than enough for one emergency," she explained. "And you were the first one to reach Trinity when it happened. Everyone else were a lot closer to where it was happening."

"So we'll just wait for them?" Calem asked.

"No. We decided to brief you first, and then we'll brief everyone else once they complete their mission."

"Understood." Calem turned to Alabastor, who looked back to him in turn. "I assume Fleet Master 'Oroamai is busy with other matters?"

"Yes," Alabaster responded. "He's needed to organize the fleets for the big operation. I'm coordinating with him and the other Admirals as we speak."

"Very well, let's get this show on the road."

Rikla turned to Alabastor and gave him a brief nod.

The humanoid mech summoned a holographic interface from the table and typed several commands.

Not long after, the platform roared to life as a large hologram of a star system materialized in the center of the room. There was only a small handful of planets in the system, which were a mix of gas giants and barren silicate planetoids.

However, there was one planet in particular that seemed the most interesting as it showed obvious signs of life.

Calem guessed everything would revolve around it.

"With your successful exfiltration of our captured OMI team, we've received valuable information of our enemy's activities," Rikla began.

With a simple gesture from her arm, the holographic image of the life-filled planet expanded and became the sole image of focus. Every other part of the star system disappeared as it was 'pushed' away.

More details of the planet came into view. Incredibly earth-like, continents with varying environments, large oceans, and definite signs of animal life.

However, there was something about this planet that gave it an odd but familiar feeling. Calem knew this feeling for going to other planets like this one in MWR space, as he noticed bits and pieces on the surface that seemed. . . artificial.

"Is that a shield world?" Calem finally asked.

"Indeed." Rikla nodded. "And it's not any ordinary shield world because we can't find any information on it in any Forerunner archives."

"Not even the Domain?

"OMI and Catalogue agents searched the Domain on a constant basis," Alabastor answered. "They found _nothing_. But the OMI team you rescued possessed many saved images and scans of the planet's surface. Upon close inspection, there are aspects of its construction that matched the shield worlds built during the Forerunner-Flood War.

"That could explain why there's no information about it," Calem theorized. "Data regarding this installation was either destroyed or kept secret."

"That's what we thought as well. There's also evidence that Builders and Lifeworkers had an extensive presence on this planet."

"That means advance technology. Possibly more within the dyson sphere.

"Indeed," said Rikla. "And our foes have been pouring so much of their resources into claiming it."

The hologram of the shield world zoomed out quite a bit, making it appeared like it shrank, revealing the small moon in its orbit. Then, thousands of holographic images of ships materialized all over the planet, all of them came in a variety of sizes but shared the same design philosophy.

The bodies of the spacecrafts were long and cylindrical with thick wing-like structures built onto them. The front halves of the ships were also long and wide, resembling upside down blades.

Calem often joked how Rahkoan ships would look like giant upside down knives in space. But he would never underestimate just how dangerous those ships could really be.

"While this is nothing like the grand armada they had long ago, this has to be one the largest fleets they've assembled ever since their defeat," Rikla explained. "They don't know what secrets this world holds, and neither do we. But that hasn't stopped them from trying to take control of it as ferociously as possible. Thousands of Rahkoan troops had been deployed on the planet's surface in an attempt to set footholds."

"Has there been a response from automated defenses?"

Alabastor was quick to answer. "There has, and they've been putting up a fierce resistance. Anti-air emplacements have destroyed quite a number of their ships in orbit while their progress planetside have slowed to a halt. But they're adapting to this, becoming more creative with their artillery and air supports to gain more ground."

"How much ground are we talking?"

"Not much but that could've changed, since then. The shield world's defenses have showed signs of adapting as well. We don't know have visual on what kind of Forerunner defenses we'll be dealing with, so remain on high alert. Judging by the possible secrecy of this planet, expect a high level AI."

"Contender-class in control?" Calem asked.

"Unknown but highly possible," Alabastor said.

"Okay. I don't have any questions right now, so how are we going to start this?"

"We're splitting the 57th and 346th into two halves, and then they'll attack the opposing force from four different directions. With the Rahkoan fleet preoccupied with supporting their ground forces, they won't immediately respond to our navy appearing in the system. And once the enemy fleet is weakened, we'll send two Demon and Spartan teams to board the flagship and destroy it from the inside."

"Am I part of the boarding party?"

"No, you'll be needed for something else." Alabastor gestured to Rikla, which the latter nodded in response.

"Once the Rahkoan fleet is further weakened, you and the other Demons on standby will be dropped on several key locations," Rikla explained as she highlighted the said locations. "These locations are in the proximity of hostile Forward Operating Bases that are crucial to our enemies operations here."

One of the highlighted locations began blinking and zoomed in. The hologram changed to show a small fortress.

"This is your target," Rika continued explaining. "This FOB is used as a hub for heavy anti-air defenses in that part of the region. Destroying it will prevent massive casualties for our ground forces reaching the surface."

"By any reason you aren't able to destroy the base, focus on destroying or disabling the anti-air emplacements," Alabastor said. "And gather as much information as you could from their network."

"Understood." Calem nodded. "Who am I partnered with?"

It was Rikla who answered. "You will be partnered with Luca again, along with a team of Headhunters selected by us."

"They will provide sniper and surveillance support," Alabastor added. "While you and Luca are infiltrating the base, the Headhunters will deal with any threats outside."

"Who are they?"

"Eli-G4345 and Eckhart-G4419 of Eta team. Spartan-IIs like you." Rikla typed commands on the holographic interface.

The hologram of the Forerunner shield World became replaced with the images of the two Spartans. They both wore different armor, Eli was equipped with the Recon variant while Eckhart wore the Scout.

"They've assisted Demons before and earned many commendations," Rikla explained. "They're a reliable duo."

"I've heard of them. They were trusted to assist Blue team on an operation."

"Indeed. There have been talks of having them chosen for Demon Selection." Rikla typed on the interface again, returning them to where they left off on the shield world. "We can lend you an information packet that details their combat history."

Calem just nodded in response.

"Once your objectives are complete, you are to regroup with the 365th Infantry Battalion and aid them in creating a base of operations."

"Anything else after that?"

"Continue to assist friendly forces until said otherwise," said Alabastor. "And inflict heavy damage on Rahkoan movements when given the opportunity."

"Understood. Since that's everything I have to do, who's responsible for finding the Control Room?"

"Blue Team," Alabastor stated. "They'll infiltrate the dyson sphere and fight their way to take control of it. As for the objectives for all other Demons, we rather save that once they're here."

"I don't mind the wait."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Very first Halo/Mass Effect crossover fic I've done. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think! Constructive critiscm is welcomed here but please take things a little on me.


	2. Chapter 2: Meet the Ascetics

_**May 8, 3350, 1007 hours, RN Vengeful Black, Crew Quarters**_

Kitha dropped her backpack beside her bunk before taking the time to place her belongings inside the built-in storage compartment like everyone else around her.

The environment was filled with excitement and tension among her comrades of the 94th Ascetic Regiment. They've been briefed about their new major assault an hour ago, a coordinated attack against a Rahkoan-occupied shield world. A shield world that wasn't found in any Forerunner records.

What they did know was that it was constructed around the time of the Forerunner-Flood War, which got many of them on edge.

Because shield worlds constructed around those times meant one thing: possibility of Flood infestation.

Everyone in the galaxy knew how horrifying the parasite could be. The utter nightmare they brought towards the Milky Way not just once, but _**twice**_.

She and her fellow warriors weren't born during the time but they've all studied the documentations of the Galactic Flood Invasion. Or to the Forerunners, the Second Flood War.

Kitha couldn't stop thinking about everything she studied about that time period. A time period when the Flood was at its strongest, far stronger when they fought against the Forerunners. A time period when the Flood almost consumed the galaxy in an unending nightmare. A time period when the galaxy almost _died_.

Kitha took a moment to get those thoughts out of her mind. As a Chief Warrant Officer, she must maintain an air of confidence and sense of control to her fellow brothers and sisters.

After she finished sorting her belongings in the compartment, Kitha laid inside her bunk and watched her other Sangheili comrades continue to get acquainted with their new quarters.

They were all part of the Ascetics, an elite military force that had a rich presence in Sangheili culture and history. They weren't considered the best fighters in the galaxy by any means but they were still astounding by their own rights. Not every Sangheili could be fit to join the Ascetics but that didn't stop anyone from trying. And to those that succeed become welcomed into a great brotherhood of warriors.

This invitation was open to other races as well. Despite the Ascetics being Sangheili-oriented, it wasn't too uncommon for other species to become accepted as long as they proved themselves. However, the number of non-Sangheili tend to be small.

Kitha was watching a non-Sangheili Ascetic, right now.

Just a few bunks away from her was Corey, a sapient mech and one of the 100 non-Sangheili in her regiment. He's been an Ascetic for two decades already, and has been well established with everyone else.

Not a lot was known about his life before the military but they managed to get some things out of him. From what they learned, he was built by humans to protect financial assets, gained sapience one day, punched his manager, and decided to enlist.

. . . That was all they could get out of him.

Corey closed his storage compartment and stood up, his height nearly that of a male Sangheili. The structure of his body was round and robust covered in scratches and faded burns, he often joked about them as being his war scars.

Kitha remembered how so many humans in the MWR would compare him to mech from Star Wars called K2-SO. She never bothered to look into it so she didn't understand and neither did she care.

Corey turned to Kitha with a flask in hand and walked towards her.

"That better not be alcohol," Kitha warned with an annoyed look, receiving curious glances from the other Sangheili.

"I was trying to lighten the mood, and this is the thanks I get?"

"You got us all in trouble from the Field Master," she replied with a growl.

"An unfortunate day but it could've been _far_ worse," Corey said quite jovially. "Really. I calculated it."

"Then what is it, Corey?"

"Something to alleviate some of the tension." Corey took the cap off his flask which allowed the hot steam to seep out. He held the flask closer towards Kitha, motioning her to take a sniff.

She complied and breathed in some of the steam, taking in the pleasant fragrant of herbs and flowers. It was a beautiful scent that actually put her mind and body at ease, briefly putting her in a calmer state of mind.

The realization kicked her, her eyes opened wide in excitement along with a smile that formed on her mandibles.

"Mahkas tea," Kitha nearly shouted in shock. This made everyone within ear shot look at them in surprise (mainly at Corey).

"What?!" Vorik 'Karoth immediately got on his feet and marched towards Corey.

"Is it really so?" Odell 'Thium followed suit along with six other Sangheili.

"Don't crowd around me," Corey warned to the group oncoming group, but they ignored it. He noticed that Vorik was preparing to swipe the flask out of his hand, and reacted by clenching it further to his side. "I wouldn't do that, Vorik. You'll make me spill it, and no one here _wants_ that."

Vorik let out an annoyed growl-like rumble before he slowly brought out an open palm. "Could I please see it?"

Corey responded by giving him the flask, which he quickly sniffed the steaming vapor flowing out of the opening.

"By the ancients, it really is!" Vorik said in utter bewilderment and passed it to Odell.

"There is no mistaking it, this is actual mahkas," commented Odell after taking a whiff, and then proceeded to pass it to the other Sangheili.

"Be careful with that," Corey cautioned as he watched everyone passing around the flask.

"Where did you get this?" Vorik asked with rising suspicion.

Kitha brought herself to sit upright as she gave Corey a cautious look. "And how did you get it? Like every other expensive drink you snuck with you."

"It's never sneaking if all of the items were bought fairly," Corey answered matter-o-factly.

"The bottle of famous human wine."

"You're never going to let that down, will you? And this is _tea_ we're talking about here, perfectly fine to drink on a naval vessel."

"_Expensive_ tea," Odell clarified. "This flask could be worth 9,000 credits."

"Good. Then it will make this a special occasion."

"Brothers! Look over here!" shouted a Sangheili away from the group.

He was Guthras, one of the youngest members of the regiment. He was kneeling in front of Corey's storage compartment, which he opened and was searching through his things.

"Guthras, what did I tell you about. . .! Oh forget it." Corey slumped, irritably. "You're already ignoring me."

The young Sangheili brought three more flasks from the compartment and held them high for all to see.

"These are all full of mahkas! And that's not the end of it." Guthras put the metal cylinders beside him and went back to sifting through the storage compartment. A moment later, he brought out a large handful of tea bags that nearly stunned everyone in surprise.

Not even Kitha could hide her shock as she got up from her bunk and stared at Guthras with wide eyes.

Mahkas was more than just simple tea to her people, it was a legendary extension of Sangheili culture. Throughout her species' history, way before the Covenant even, mahkas was viewed as something to instantly cleanse minds and rejuvenate souls. However, these myths had been debunked for centuries, but that didn't decrease the tea's value.

Mahkas tea came from a dried flower of which it was named from. In ancient times, it would be served only to the kaidons and their most respected warriors. For centuries this tea would be famous for not only its health benefits but for its relaxation effect of the mind, bringing force a sense of tranquility and focus to a stressed conscious.

And it was indeed delicious.

A significant reason why the tea was this expensive was because mahkas flowers had to go through a complicated series of harvesting and drying. While new technologies had helped make these processes less arduous with increased yields, cultivation of the plants was still difficult, especially with producers wanting to maintain the teas' famously high quality.

Kitha remembered her time as a child during the Week of Survival, dancing and cheering with the other Sangheili children in her keep. The adults were either supervising them, chatted, meditated, or had their own fun during the festivities.

The week long holiday was meant to celebrate the end of the Second Flood War and commemorate the trillions upon trillions of souls who died horribly during that time. It was to remind them how the galaxy was nearly devoured in abominable horror, how so many people back then fought so hard and suffered to grant them a tomorrow.

She remembered when they received a large cart from their neighboring keeps which were filled with an assortment of meats, alcoholic beverages for the adults, and mahkas tea bags.

It was her first time drinking mahkas and it turned into an unforgettable experience. And it taking place during one the most famous galactic holidays further increased its personal value.

"Corey. . ." Kitha looked at him with rising suspicion. "How did you get _all_ of that mahkas?"

"And what are you going to use it for?" Vorik asked in astonishment.

"It's all meant for you and whatever amount I could share with the regiment," Corey answered.

"There's not enough here for all of the Ascetics," Guthras called out as he put all of the tea bags back into the compartment.

"Not unless everyone takes very small sips," Corey replied with an obvious hint of sarcasm, but returned to being more serious. "But, no, there really isn't enough for everyone."

"We're getting off topic," said Kitha, bringing back all attention on her. "Again, how and where did you get all of that mahkas?"

Corey did not hesitate to answer, "I met someone from the 'Roan clan on vacation."

"How did you manage to gain entry to any of the 'Roan keeps?" Odell asked.

"I didn't meet him anywhere near their territories, we bumped into each other in Reach," Corey explained. "He almost got into an accident and I, well, pulled him away from it just in time."

"You saved the life of a Sangheili who's from one of the most affluent clan names known for mahkas production?" Kitha asked.

"I didn't know anything about the 'Raon clan, beforehand. And I wouldn't say I saved his life, but I did prevent him from possibly losing his legs."

All of the other Ascetics merely exchanged glances between one another, not saying a single word but watched Corey.

"How long ago was this?" Kitha asked

"Two months ago," Corey answered, nonchalantly.

"And you didn't tell anyone about it?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Low calculated chance any of you would believe me. So I didn't bother."

"Except now."

"What?"

"You calculated the chances to reveal this now would be very high. That is why you're revealing all of this," Kitha hypothesized.

Corey remained quiet for a moment, his mechanical eyes looking up and down her body.

Kitha didn't show it but she was getting annoyed. There wasn't much body language being displayed from the mech, no defining facial features to read, absolutely nothing for her to gain any understanding to what he's thinking.

"That explanation is just absurd," Corey replied. "I brought up the tea to help calm you all down and boost morale. Not to incite this drama."

"Did you really expect none of us would be suspicious of you bringing mahkas aboard?" Odell asked curiously, but there was no anger or sternness.

"I expected you to be surprised and then just take the bloody tea."

"Did you get all of it from your friend from 'Roan?" Vorik asked.

"I did, actually." Corey nodded. "After the briefing, I found out he was on Trinity for a business trip. I called him and asked if he had some mahkas to spare for the 'hard-fighting Ascetics' and he gladly had those couriered to me."

"That's it?"

"That's it," Corey answered somewhat cheerful.

"All of this is for us?" Kitha spoke up.

"All of you can share one flask and one bag per person. I want to even these out to as much of the regiment as I could."

"You better start now, then." Kitha shifted her head towards Guthras, who was still at the far back. "Help him by putting the mahkas back in his backpack."

"Leave out eight of them for everyone here," Corey added.

Guthras just nodded and he went to doing what they told him to do.

Once the young Sangheili finished, Corey walked up to him and took the backpack as he made his way towards the exit.

"Don't forget to give one to the General," Kitha said loudly as Corey stopped right in front of the doors.

The mech turned around to look at Kitha (along at everyone else). "I won't. That would be bad mistake." He turned back around and left, the automatic doors closing right behind him.

Guthras walked towards the rest of the Sangheili that still stood in front of Kitha, and began passing a tea bag to everyone.

"First it was those lavish human wines, now it's mahkas," Vorik said in disbelief while looking at both the flash and the tea bag in his hands.

"And he saved the life of a member from 'Roam," Odell added.

"Remember when he brought in that baby kangaroo last year?" asked a different Ascetic in the group, M'thro.

"Corey is just full of surprises." Kitha moved closer to the group which garnered their attention. She then looked at the flask in Vorik's hand. "Alright everyone, grab a cup and start passing around the mahkas. The fleet won't be ready for some time, let's enjoy the time while we have it."

Everyone in front of her agreed and walked to their bunks to put away their tea bags and find anything that could be used for cups. When that was over, they gathered in the middle of the room, evenly distributing the tea amongst each other and then drank it.

They were all enjoying it. Some of them let out sighs of relief as they felt their tensions built up in their minds seeped away and replaced with a tranquil calm. The combined aromas from all of their cups began to fill the room, further relaxing them.

Kitha took another sip from her cup, the soothing taste of the mahkas brought back more good memories that put her in a better state of mind. It was a wonderful feeling that she and her fellow warriors would never take for granted. The sense of tranquility and the taste of a beloved tea by her species.

"Everyone, give me your cups. There's still enough for one more round," Vorik said, and everybody complied almost immediately.

Kitha was the last to react as she just looked at her brothers in arms with the Sangheili equivalent of a smile. Seeing all of the joy on their faces made her feel good inside, something she was also taught not take for granted.

Once everyone else got their refills, she brought out her cup and eagerly waited for hers.

With how important the next engagement would be, this could possibly be their last time doing something like this. And none of them were going to waste it.

* * *

_**Matoaba Airbase, Spartan Armory B**_

Maintenance drones flew around Calem as he stood atop a round podium, performing scans and diagnosing his armor's systems.

His fellow Demon, Luca-E35019, stood a few meters away; arms crossed and his back slumped against the wall and simply watched.

It's already been some time since the rest of the Demons arrived. They redid the briefing to ensure everybody was up to speed, nothing new to Calem. What was new was that everyone pitched in different ideas and strategies to complete their objectives more effectively. It was a set of discussions that almost took an hour but it ended with some new tactics being accepted while others were rejected for not seeming practical to the situation.

Once the briefing ended, he and Luca went to one of the Spartan armories to have their MJOLNIRs analyzed for anomalies.

They were both wearing GEN6 MJOLNIR like all Spartans with the exception of theirs being colored black.

Luca wore the whole body variant for EOD as he had extensive experience with explosives. However, he chose the Wrath helmet over the traditional EOD helmet as he preferred the larger field of vision it offered.

Calem wore the Standard variant of the armor as he liked how it was good for a little bit of everything. It wasn't spectacular for anything too specific but it was reliable, durable, and it still got the job done. And Calem wasn't the kind of person to transition to a completely different set of armor so easily.

Like many Spartans and Demons, he grew attached to his MJOLNIR. He wore it so long it became an extension of his own body. There had been times he would wear different variants because the mission would demand it, or just stop wearing it while on vacation or seeing family. Besides all of that, he would always get back to wearing his Standard MJOLNIR because it was his very first set of armor, it was like another set of skin to him.

And he personally loved the look. He'd admit he was a sucker for the iconic Mark VI (or GEN3) appearance.

"Diagnosis complete. Everything is fully operational, Demon. You are free to go," said one of the maintenance drones as it hovered in front of Calem's visor.

"Thank you." And with that, all of the drones flew away to check on the equipment within the armory.

"Is there anything else you need to do?" Luca asked as he walked towards him.

"No. How about you?"

"Nein. Let's to get to the ship."

"Alrighty then."

After that being said, the two Demons walked side by side and left the armory.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** New chapter is done! Whoo! A lot shorter than the first one, though I try to keep a word count of at least 3,000 words (make it longer if I could).

Again, nothing huge happens here. It's more about getting to know the characters and implement some world building, slowly getting the feel for it. The next chapter I plan to have more exciting things happen. Like combat and finally showing the appearing of the Rahkoans!

Also, thank you guys very much for following and faving this fic! You guys don't what it's like for me to check my emails only to see the notifications of people taking the time read, follow, or favorite this thing! Really guys, thank you.

And please leave a review and let me know what you think. I really do like reading reviews. Please don't go too tough on me, I'm still getting into the groove of typing fanfiction.

On a last note, I don't know when I'll get the third chapter out; it could be a while. I have mid-terms in college I have to deal with along with family obligations. I won't have plenty of free time to write, thought I'll try to put in some words here-and-there. Again, it'll be some time before I get the third chapter out.

Thank you all again for reading! You all have a nice day and enjoy these new CODEX ENTRIES.

**PS: **I'm not gonna lie here, everyone: I went pretty lazy on this. This fic was a very old project of mine from highschool that I quit for a time and began doing a complete overhaul. The Codex Entry is directly from the old original chapter that I just copy and pasted here and done a few changes; so it's going to look a tad. . . off

I tried rewriting everything about the technologies but I ended up getting way too stressed about it. I probably won't do these as much, however, I do want to get into the habit of it.

* * *

**Milky Way Republic Codex:**

**DG119-TC/G Garuda: **Being the successors of the old UNSC Pelican, Covenant Phantoms and various Forerunner gunships, Garudas were made with the designs, specifications and technologies of all races. They've been implemented by pieces of ancient human technologies that were discovered in many excavations, mixed with the MWR's current level of technology.

All of these factors made the combat and transporting capabilities of the Garuda efficient and devastating. They're able to carry a larger sum of troops than a Phantom, while still possessing room for additional supplies. If need be, the cargo holds of the dropships could be turned into an expanded section of the troop bay, giving them the capability to transport even more personnel, if the need for it ever arose.

The dropships themselves possess a deadly array of weapons that use plasma, lasers, hardlight, or ballistic rounds. Of course, they were also armed with missile launchers, whenever the use of devastating firepower should be needed in a combat scenario. Also, a Garuda contained strong layers of armor and energy shielding that were durable enough to shrug heavy fire, lessening damage to the overall craft and protecting its occupants, while the metals' composition being modified to not put any heavy weight that would hamper its speed or maneuverability.

Due to this dropship's combat capabilities, a gunship variant was never needed to be produced as the current design for the troop carrier had the armaments to fit that role (TC/G stood for Troop Carrier/Gunship).

**Standard Plasma Assault Rifle:** The standard-issued weapon assigned to many servicemen in all branches of the military.

Thirty-two feet in length and designed to be remarkably easy to handle, this plasma rifle would be the first weapon that almost every recruit will be appointed by the military after basic training. Being a direct energy weapon, it fired strong bolts of ionized, superheated plasma that could severely damage an opponent's energy shields and burn through multiple layers of thick armor. SPARs could fire sixty-four of these bolts before the power cell's energy supply becomes drained. This kind of rifle was made with two barrels, capable of simultaneously firing two plasma bolts whenever the trigger was pulled, each paired shot only costs one percent of energy from the weapon's power cells. The small cells that were built into almost every kind of energy weapon in the MWR Military were self-rechargeable, and would near-instantly replenish the energy that was lost after a brief recharge period.

**Civilian Personal Armor: ** After the Forerunners' return to the Milky Way galaxy the use of advance personal armor systems became high in demand and mandatory in almost every planet in the Republic (especially during the Second Flood War). Though not possessing as much offensive and defensive capabilities as the suits or combat skins made for military personnel; civilian variants still had immense durability to defend the wearer from a multitude array of dangerous attacks and hazardous situations. The armor's endurance was further increased by energy shields installed into the suit's systems.

Another important feature that the civilian variant held was its room for customization; like many sets of combat armor in the military, the designs of the suit were made to allow the wearer to modify and install an immeasurable variety of hardware or software to suit their own preference.

However, it should be noted that while civilian personal armor was indeed made to help people survive the harshest of environments and even combat to some degree; it was never meant to be suit used for war. No matter how much somebody equips their personal armor with modifications to be used as impromptu weapons, which was illegal in most circumstances; the suit was never meant to be aggressively used in warfare. It has, and always, been made to provide civilians maximum amounts of protection from those situations, never meant to equip them to actively engage in combat.


	3. Chapter 3: Enter Silently, Leave Loudly

_**3350, Unknown Forerunner Shield World, Rahkoan Forward Operating Base**_

Calem stood close to a nearby corner, his armor cloaked and invisible to eyesight and sensors as he watched a group of Rahkoans running down the hallway.

Their armored feet hit hard against the floors after every step, the flaring alarm lights reflecting off their crude and blocky armor. Some of them frantically moved their heads from side-to-side as they were on high alert for any intruders that snuck inside the base.

Intruders like him.

Calem noticed that the Rahkoan acting as the leader of the group didn't have his helmet on, showing his rat-like face as clear as day with rows of fang-like teeth poking out the sides of his snout. He let out huffed breaths as he ran, occasionally making low pitch screech like what some Kig-Yar would do but far croakier and gurgle-like.

Suddenly, the large group of Rahkoans came to a halt, and not that far from Calem too.

The leader of the group let out an annoyed hiss as he placed a hand over a device on his ear, grasping it under his six fingers.

Out of instinct (and the urge of past experience), Calem immediately began hacking into that Rahkian's comm link. Smiling in delight as no one detected his intrusion.

_/HACKING INTO TARGETED COMM LINE. AUDIO ONLY./_

_/LOADING. . ./_

_/PASSING THROUGH SECURITY MEASURES./_

_/HACK UNDECTED./_

_/HACKING ACCOMPLISHED. RECEIVING AUDIO./_

"_Hostile AIs are breaking through the western ward!"_ shouted the strained voice of another Rahkoan in their native language. Gunfire and explosions could be heard in the background that were accompanied by painful screams. _"We need reinforcements! Any nearby forces divert to the western ward!"_

_/COMM LINE DISCONNECTED./_

The leader of the group turned to face the soldiers behind him, letting out an irritated growl.

"We just passed them. Turn around and head back," he commanded under a tone of authority and rising anger.

Everyone complied with his orders immediately as they all turned around and began running back where they came, their leader of the group following close behind.

Once the Rahkoans were gone, Calem took that as the opportunity to start running down the hallway.

All noise that would be generated from his feet hitting the ground had been subdued from the sound mufflers built into his armor. However, he still needed to be careful not to be too close to the enemy for obvious reasons.

Ahead of him, the hallway split into two different pathways with a directory written in the Rahkoan language.

Calem's interest peaked as he read their equivalent to _Western Security Office_ on the directory which pointed towards the pathway on the left.

He immediately turned to the left path and continued. However, he slowed down as a large bulkhead opened a couple dozen meters ahead of him, revealing a rather large group Rahkoan troopers on the other side.

Calem counted over fifty of them crowding amongst each other, some of them carrying heavy ordinance.

Not wasting any time, the Demon activate his armor's magnetic locks and climbed the walls until he secured himself on the ceiling.

The Rahkoan forces began rushing down the hallway in a hurry, completely unaware that a Demon spied on them from above.

Calem stayed put and didn't move. He watched the large crowd of rat-like aliens storm down the hallway in a huge rush, weapons clenched in their arms. The noise of metal footsteps filled the area and echoed throughout the base like a construction site.

This went on for another couple seconds until the hallways were finally clear.

Wanting to be sure, Calem did some intensive scans of the immediate area, checking for any movement, heat signatures, or lifesigns that were coming his way. He even switched between his thermal and x-ray imaging for extra assurance.

No additional hostiles detected. He turned off the scans and was back on the move.

Luckily for him, the door to the security office was a few meters behind the opened bulkhead where the Rahkoans ran from.

Calem took position beside the door and activated his helmet's x-ray imaging, seeing the distinctive skeletons of the Rahkoans through the walls.

Four hostiles inside. Two on the far left, one on the far right and one in the center. All standard troopers.

Calem took out the Bludgeoner revolver on his hip, ensured the silencer was secured and held it at the ready.

After entering the access codes on the wall-mounted panel, the doors opened.

He rushed inside and shot the two hostiles on the left, the rear half of their heads exploded into chunks of brain matter and skull fragments which splattered the walls behind them.

He immediately turned to the Rahkoan on the far right and shot him between the eyes, leaving a golf ball-sized hole as the back-half of his head exploded like the previous two.

Before the last Rahkoan could even realize what just happened, Calem activate his wrist-mounted plasma blade and rushed towards him, stabbing the rat-like alien through the side of his skull (shooting him would damage the console in front of him).

The body in front of him stood still, the hissing of superheated plasma cooking brain matter and metal made from the alien's helmet before finally falling on the floor with a hard _thud_.

None of them had a chance to notice him.

None of them saw him.

None of them had a chance to realize what was going on before it started.

All in a span of three seconds.

Calem walked to the large set of consoles by the center wall. They were huge and bulky that had half a dozen smaller screens attached to the sides. And fitting with Rahkoan architecture, they were boxy in shape and crude in construction, yet held some elegant traits.

He went up to the console's interface and began hacking into the mainframe. His fingers danced on the holographic keys as his armor's hacking software simultaneously infiltrated numerous firewalls and security programs; the sides of his HUD was filled with small screens full of data which disappeared and replaced with new ones every few seconds.

'_Gotcha.'_

He found it. He's in the FOB's network and found the data he was looking for: force deployments, patrol movements, equipment lists, everything needed to know about their enemies' movements on this part of the planet.

_/SCANNING ALL TARGETED DATA. . ./_

_/SCAN COMPLETE./_

_/CREATING COMPLETE COPY./_

There was no need to steal the information because doing so would further alert the Rahkoans and make them adapt.

It became proper procedure to scan the information and create a copy from the armor's built-in computing systems. Because of the advancements and sophistication of the military armors' built-in hardware and software, it could create perfectly identical copy of the source data after the initial scans.

This would help MWR forces stay ahead of their adversaries without alerting them of their information being 'stolen'.

"_This is Eta Team to Black Team. Report in," _called in Eli over their private channel.

"This is Black Three-One. Currently hacking into the FOB's mainframe. All primary objectives completed," Calem answered.

"_This is Black Three-Two. All primary objectives accomplished. Setting charges in the armories,"_ said Luca.

"What's your status, Eta Team?"

"_Green. But armigers are breaching_ _the_ _base defenses from the west and east sides; unknown variants with heavier armor. Recommend you finish what you're doing and exfiltrate._

"Affirmative, Eta, keep us posted."

_/PROCESS COMPLETE./_

And with that, it was time to go.

Calem stepped away from the console and made his way towards the door.

"_Eta to Black. Confirmed sightings of Rahkoan reinforcements coming from the east and closing."_

"Copy, Eta, I'm leaving now. Luca?"

"_I'm done here. I'm close to a hangar on the south. I can occupy us a dropship undetected."_

"Do it."

"_Alright, I'll see you there."_

Before the door opened, Calem reactivated his cloak and began running back the way he came.

The hallways were clear, no hostiles whatsoever. Not even a single blip on his motion tracker. There were still the wall-mounted defense turrets but his cloak kept him invisible to their sensors. Because of this, he continued to run pass them with no issue as they simply look around.

'_Security's allocated to focus on the armigers. Lucky me,'_ he thought to himself as he turned another corner.

He entered another long corridor that was devoid of enemy forces with the exception of the turrets on the walls. A large bulkhead was at the other side with its massive frames closed shut, slowly getting bigger as Calem ran closer to it.

_**BOOM!**_

Calem came to a complete halt as the floor below him quaked from the explosion. Judging by how strong and loud it was, he deduced it happened somewhere behind the bulkhead.

Suddenly, red blips began to fill the top portion of his motion tracker which all came from the other side of the massive door.

Calem activated his X-ray only to see that a significant portion of the hallway behind the bulkhead was _blown_ apart. He saw numerous Rahkoan skeletons littered the floor, some of which were scattered in small pieces.

Forerunner armigers began walking through the giant opening they've created, their metallic bodies glowed brightly in Calem's X-ray imaging.

The armigers walked towards different in areas the hallway, weapons held up and at the ready as they scanned the immediate area for enemies.

Calem immediately noticed that these armigers were different than what he was expecting. He was immediately reminded by the warning from Eta Team.

Their designs shared a lot of similarities with Promethean Soldiers used during the Forerunner-Flood War but more modified. The bodies were bigger but not big enough to make them easier targets. Heavier armor adorned their bodies which was a lot rounder in contrast with the Forerunner's usual sleek and angular aesthetics. And their heads were far more human-like, their faces appearing like they were based off a model of the generic human (which creaked out Calem).

"_Hostiles detected!"_ said one of the armigers in the Forerunner language. It turned to face another bulkhead in the far end of the hallway, aiming down the scope of its lightrifle while it and the rest in its group took up firing positions.

The massive doors began to open but stopped, leaving a wide gap that could fit three average humans.

Calem could see the skeletons of numerous Rahkoans taking positions by the large door frames and toss grenades. The resulting explosion destroyed three of the armigers as the rest managed to evade it just in time.

In response to this, six more armigers ran into the hallway to reinforce the first group before they all teleported behind the Rahkoan forces, catching them in surprise.

It became a bloodbath after that as both sides began firing against each other in close range. This got much deadlier when more armigers began teleporting in one by one.

Rahkoan troopers frantically fired their weapons as they tried to get some distance away from their enemies. Some didn't react fast enough and fell dead on the ground with multiple burning holes, their energy shields already destroyed by concentrated fire from lightrifles. The unluckier ones were disintegrated into ash piles or amputated when they tried to fight the armigers in CQC.

The wall-mounted turrets supported through suppressing fire which destroyed a few of the armigers. They were blasted to pieces not long after but they gave the Rahkoans time to retreat the area.

The armigers let out mechanical screams in frustration and began chasing their enemies while reinforcements teleported behind them, stomping or kicking away the dead bodies.

"Black Three-One to Black Three-Two, what's your status?" Calem turned around and began running back where he came.

"_Green. In a dropship currently on standby but won't stay like that for long."_

"Estimated time?"

"_Five minutes."_

"I won't make it in time. My current route was breached by armigers and I'm taking the long way. I'll send you a copy of the information I hacked from the network and find my own way out of here."

"_I can delay the takeoff for a little longer."_

"That will arouse suspicion. Just take the info and pick up Eta. I'll find my own way out of the base and regroup at the rendezvous."

"_Very well. Don't get yourself killed."_

"I won't."

"_I'll let you know once I've taken off. Good luck to you."_

_/SENDING COMPRESSED FILES TO DEMON BLACK TWO. . ./_

_/TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL./_

Calem turned another corner and kept running, passing by more turrets that never noticed his presence.

Red blips appeared on the upper right corner of his motion tracker which made Calem slow down to a walk, Bludgeoner held at the ready.

A group of Rahkoan troopers ran through an opened door eight meters ahead of him, taking cover by the walls from Forerunner weapons fire. As soon as the last trooper made it a few steps into the hallway, he disintegrated into a smoking ash pile.

The other Rahkoans reacted by returning fire from their cover; none of them tried to peak over the opening to aim, worried about the armigers' precision. Instead, they just held their rifles out in the opening and blindly fired where the hardlight shots came from, hoping they'd hit something.

Knowing he can't go through there, Calem turned to the door on his left and hacked its access panel. He immediately went inside once it opened, revealing to be a smaller corridor that connected to another hallway.

"_Black Three-Two to Black Three-One, my dropship is making an early takeoff. I'll wait for the right time to hijack it and meet you at the rendezvous."_

"Affirmative, Three-Two." Calem stopped right in front of the opening that led to the hallway as a large force of Rahkoans began running through. And once they were all gone, he was back on the move.

He spent the next five minutes running through hallways and entering new corridors. The results were the same, some of them were empty while others were filled with Rahkoans running to reinforce compromised positions. He had no issue evading them and did just that, this proved easier as he got further away from where the fighting took place.

Calem found himself close to an exit that was in a location very far away from all of the fighting.

It was heavily guarded, over a dozen Rahkoan troops stood behind heavy barricades that went halfway up their chests, two heavy machineguns manned and mounted in the middle. Plenty of wall-mounted turrets standing by and at the ready to fire.

Every single one of them facing towards his location.

Not really a problem.

Calem primed an EMP grenade and threw it, landing directly in the middle of the group.

The Rahkoans didn't have time to react as the grenade exploded the second after it hit the ground, forcing all of their electronics to short circuit.

All of the turrets became covered in wild jolts of electricity as they slumped towards the floor. The lights immediately shut off, forcing the hallway be surrounded by complete darkness.

Calem went back to walking towards the exit, his augmented eyesight allowing him to see in the black darkness; watching the confused Rahkoans figuring what happened to their equipment.

As he got closer, he held his Bludgeoner at the ready, took aim at the leader of group and fired.

Before the rest of the group could question why one of them fell on the floor, all of their heads started exploding one-by-one in less than a second in between. In just mere seconds, the eleven living Rahkoans became eleven headless bodies that stood motionless, blood and pieces of brain matter dripping down their armor.

Calem walked passed standing corpses as he reloaded his Bludgeoner, and then they began to fall on the hard floor which let out loud bangs and thuds.

The doors opened in front of him and he was finally outside of the base, standing before a large grassy plain with a mountainside a kilometer away.

There were no Rahkoan troops in sight, however, there were automated turrets placed on strategic positions around the ground, some attached to the wall. It was highly possible that all organic forces had been reallocated to defend compromised areas of the base.

Calem began running towards the mountainside, the turrets failed to detect him and lazily turned from side-to-side. His running speed drastically increased over time as he adjusted his armors acceleration.

"This is Three-One to Three-Two, I'm making my way to the rendezvous. What's your status?"

"_Just picked up Eta Team. I read you half a klick away. Making my way to you now."_

Off in the distance, from near the top of the mountain was the dropship. It appeared as a tiny speck but it quickly grew larger as the seconds pass, showing more details of the Rahkoan vessel.

It was a Grakege, the standard dropship of the Rahkoan armed forces.

Like anything built by the Rahkoan military, it was large and cumbersome, bigger than a Garuda. Dozens of thick armor plates decorated the surface, loosely swinging to the sides from the momentum of being moved around while reflecting sunlight. The large engines roared as the whole craft adjusted speed, bursting out huge flames.

Not before long, it was already a dozen meters away from Calem, maneuvering to its side as it slowed down to enable him to get closer. The large side door opened, revealing Eta Team hanging onto the safety rails as they watched Calem get closer to the aircraft.

"Jump in," shouted Eckhart.

Calem immediately complied and jumped towards the inside dropship, his landing creating a loud metallic _BANG _that echoed throughout the interior.

"Three-Two, I'm in." Calem turned and walked in between the Spartans of Eta Team, watching the view of the grassy plains before them (and the Rahkoan base).

"_Affirmative, Three-One. I'll take us to high elevation to grant us a view of the FOB before triggering the explosives."_

Calem and the Spartans beside him just stood silently and watched as they hovered high in the sky, and flew towards a different position that granted them a better view of the enemy FOB. Especially the airfield which had rows upon rows of heavy anti-air emplacements.

There was still plenty of fighting going on. Gunfire and explosions could be seen coming from east and west sides of the base as streams of smoke went straight towards the sky. Crowds of armigers were taking cover by the walls before aiming down their lightrifles and shooting, before having to take cover again; there were some unlucky ones that got destroyed, their remains disintegrating into orange particles.

"This is a good spot, Three-Two. Having clear visual of the double-A emplacements," Calem said over the comms.

"_Affirmative. Trigger the explosives now."_

"Roger that." Calem remotely activated the explosives via his helmet's HUD.

Far below them, all of the anti-air emplacements exploded simultaneously, consuming the airfield into destructive fireballs and clouds of black smoke. And then more explosives went off all over the FOB, massive explosions blew apart sturdy structures piece by piece and consumed it in fire right after. Clouds of debris and black smoke washed over what's left of the base, slowly making it harder to see with the exception of flashes gunfire from confused survivors.

It didn't take long for what's left to be completely buried in black fog.

"They were already having a bad day, then. They're going to deal with something worse, now," said Eli.

"Ditto." Calem opened a comms channel to the _Vengeful Black_. "This is Black Three-One to Rear Admiral Alabastor, all objectives complete."

"_Copy that, Three-One. All other Demon teams have reported in mission successes. Ground forces are deploying now," _came in Alabastor's voice.

"Any progress with the shield world's teleportation network?"

"_Negative. Cyber Operators and AIs are having difficulties accessing the shield world's systems. No teleportation access with the exception of groundside networks planted by the military. And expect all automated defenses to remain hostile."_

"What about our Forerunner personnel? Shouldn't they have access to this planet?"

"_Most of the Cyber Operators active on this are Forerunners but are still being denied by the network. Command has been scrambling ancient high level security codes from the Forerunner-Flood War and still no progress." _

"Does this change our objectives?"

"_Negative. You are to still assist the 365__th__ into establishing an FOB until further notice. Over."_

"Affirmative, Rear Admiral. Out."

"Friendly ground forces landing ahead. Two and a half kilometers out," Eli stated as he pointed to the direction in front of him.

"They're not the 365th," Eckhart commented.

Calem used his HUD like binoculars by zooming in on the friendly forces for a better visual. He immediately recognized the unique helmets they wore along with insignia stamped onto the left side of their armor.

"They're Ascetics from the 94th," Calem clarified.

As they watched, more and more soldiers from the regiment (dominantly Sangheili) debarked from their dropships and charged towards a Forerunner building.

The Foreunner building in question was a long tower-like structure with no exits or entrances. It lazily floated a dozen meters above another structure beneath it which served as the foundation, attached to it by a vibrating energy field. This structure was also huge with a large flat top shaped like an oval, and was filled with Rahkoan gun emplacements.

Rahkoan gun emplacements on the structure opened fire, peppering friendly forces with superheated projectiles. However, the Ascetics reacted quickly by taking positions behind cover and returning fire, inflicting well-placed shots that damaged the gun emplacements but still not destroying them.

A few Ascetics with heavy plasma repeaters walked a few meters out of cover and fired volleys of superheated plasma at the enemy. Caddis drones flew beside them, projecting large bubble shields that protected them from heavy fire, their outer layer covered in ripples as they were constantly struck by needle-like rounds.

Small groups of ghosts zoomed around the structure in high speeds, slowing down to fire plasma at enemy positions or bombard them with grenades.

A group of Garudas began flying around the building to provide air support, firing volleys of plasma onto enemy locations; some launched low-yield rockets onto more fortified areas on the building which caused them to erupt in flames and smoke.

Gunfire from the Forerunner structure died down drastically, giving the Ascetics the opportunity to get out of cover and charged into the building.

The Garudas began to leave as they were no longer needed. Friendly forces slowly disappeared as more of them entered the structure, a few groups remained outside acting as a rear guard.

"That was impressive. They're already taking a fortified position in a short time," stated Eckhart.

"They're Ascetics. They're supposed too," Calem commented.

"_Alright everyone, I just received coordinates to the 365__th's __location. I'm going to bring us there now,"_ Luca said over the radio channel.

"Roger that."

Everyone turned to walk deeper into the Grakege as the side doors closed. The engines roared once more as it accelerated to its new destination.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Here's the third chapter! Go ahead and enjoy! ^w^**

**The Fourth chapter is already in the works and I'm almost done with it, so stay tuned. I thought about releasing both of them at the same time, however, I thought it would be best to bring this one out because I don't want to leave you guys hanging.**

**No Codex Entries for a while, I'm afraid.**

**Please enjoy the read and tell me what you think. Constructive criticsm and opinions on what you think about this are always welcome.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Gate has been Unlatched

_**3350, Unknown Forerunner Shield World, Ongoing Assault on Forerunner Structure; 94**__**th**__** Ascetic Regiment**_

The Promethean armiger reeled backward as he took a shot on the arm from plasma fire, turning it into a blackened slump.

Angrily, it let out a near ear-splitting scream, the metal face peeling back to reveal a skull-like structure that glowed a bright orange light. This beckoned some of the other armigers to do the same, filling the air in a chorus of rage-filled screaming.

Another bolt of superheated plasma struck it in the head, blowing it into pieces. Whatever's left quickly disintegrated into orange particles that later vanished into nothing, including the intact lightrifle in its hand.

Kitha ducked back into cover to wait for her SPAR to recharge, the two barrels were hot and smoking from constant use.

It's been twelve minutes since they secured the outer perimeter of the Forerunner structure. She and Lieutenant Rihai 'Zekumai were left in charge of a large garrison to defend the outside, setting positions on top of the building's flat oval roof.

The rest of the regiment were fighting Rahkoan forces inside the structure itself. True to old Forerunner fashion, it spanned many levels underground.

They spared no time fortifying their position by placing deployable barricades, turrets, and portable shield walls. Even with debris from destroyed Rahkoan defenses, they still managed to set up a vast majority of their own defenses in a short time. However, further progress slowed down once the armigers ambushed them via teleportation.

These armigers were very different than the ones she's seen within MWR space. They were bigger and more aggressive, having some feral behaviors that she found unnerving. And their disturbing human-like faces which had slim metal 'skin' that pulled back in a grossly fashion whenever they screamed.

'_Disgusting!'_

_Ping!_

Kitha's SPAR finished its recharge, she stood up, aimed and return fire against the armigers, managing to destroy a few of them.

"Guthras, have you managed to reinforce your position?" Kitha asked over the radio, destroying another armiger.

"_We just finished closing the gaps, Chief. But more of them are teleporting in."_

"Any casualties?"

_"Negative. We're holding our line with valor."_

"Radio in if any trouble occurs." Her shields flared as multiple lightrifle shots impacted against it, however, remained strong. She immediately turned where the shots came from and fired back at the attackers.

One armiger had the left half of its body blown to pieces, and then the one next to it had a few large holes blown onto its chest. The surviving four began teleporting in random locations, firing a few shots at Kitha's position and then teleported again.

Even with the fast-paced and random teleportations, Kitha managed to destroy a couple more of them by predicting their movements. But more armigers appeared to replace the ones that were destroyed, along with several more coming in as reinforcements.

_Beep!_

Kitha ducked back into cover as her SPAR commenced another recharge. She let out an annoyed growl as she heard the constant banging of lightrifle rounds hitting against her barricade.

Next to her, Corey loaded the grenade launcher attached to his SPAR, stood out of cover for a moment and fired it before ducking back in the barricade.

"Lieutenant 'Zekumai, what's the status of our forces in the structure? Armigers are teleporting on our position," Kitha said over the radio.

"Correction: armigers are teleporting on _every_ position." Corey stood up to fire his grenade launcher again and then ducked back into cover.

"_They are still dealing with Rahkoan stragglers within the interior,"_ 'Zekumai replied, sounds of gunfire and explosions were heard from his side of the radio. _"They're encountering stiff resistance, they can't spare any men at this time."_

"Are they facing trouble with any Forerunner defenses?" Kitha stood up and fired at another armiger, destroying it not long after.

"_Strangely, no. They haven't encountered any Forerunner defensive systems. Not even a single armiger."_

"That is strange," Corey said with rising suspicion (they're talking in communication channel open to the whole garrison).

"_For now, we hold our positions. I already radioed for air support but they won't be here for some time."_

"How long?" Kitha passed a plasma grenade to Corey which he loaded it in his grenade launcher and fired it at a group of enemies, destroying them.

"_ETA is ten minutes. They're currently helping other friendly forces. We will have to keep fighting until then."_

"Understood, 'Zekumai. Out." Kitha disconnected the line and briefly looked around to see the other Ascetics holding their ground against their aggressors with courage and determination. "You've all heard that brothers and sisters! We will have aid from the skies soon! But for now, show these old machinations the courage and ferocity of the Sangheili Ascetics! Show them the might from the greatest warriors the galaxy has ever seen, and cast them back to the darkened pits they spurred from!"

All of the Sangheili around her responded with a chorus of mighty roars that echoed throughout the air. Their fighting spirit rejuvenated and began holding their positions with near unbreakable resolve and determination.

Kitha watched Vorik as he held his ground near the far side, firing an unending barrage of plasma fire from a mounted Dragoon, the eight barrels glowing red from the intense heat. A group of other Ascetics took cover by the barricades beside him, occasionally peeking out to return fire for a whole minute before retreating back behind the walls.

Suddenly, the sound of lightrifle fire impacting the barricades began to slow down until it stopped altogether, enveloping the surroundings in an odd silence.

"What's happening out there?" Kitha asked Corey in alarm.

"They're retreating," Corey replied with hints of confusion.

"What?" Kitha stood out of cover to see this for her herself.

And he was right. One by one, armigers began to teleport out of the battlefield, disappearing in flashes of white light.

Now, all that was left before them was an empty valley riddled with patches of burnt grass and craters big enough to fit a few Sangheili into.

"There are _many_ things wrong here, Chief."

"Indeed." Kitha opened activated her radio and opened a comm. line to 'Zekumai. "This is 'Kiromai to 'Zekumai. Hostile armigers halted their attacks and retreated."

"_Affirmative, 'Kiromai. All positions have experienced this as well."_

Before Kitha could say a word, the ground beneath them shook violently with an audible rumble that could be heard by everyone.

"Warning! Earthquake! Seven-point-five on the Richter scale!" Corey shouted with collected urgency for all to hear (and broadcasted it through radio).

"_Steadfast, brothers and sisters. Activate your footlocks and brace yourselves."_

Kitha pushed her back against the barricade and started doing just that. Toggling with her armor's systems through the interface in her HUD, the soles under boots let out small drill-like protrusions and firmly anchored her in place. Her back magnetized onto the barricade for extra stability.

Amid the shaking, Kitha looked around to how her fellow Ascetics were faring.

To her content, everyone was doing fine. Despite the violent quake, everyone around her had tightly secured themselves as they lightly trembled from the shaking.

And then, some of them began to look towards the horizon in shock and awe, their heads slowly arching upwards in near unison without uttering a single word.

"Chief, something is happening and you need to take a look," Corey said, his voice sounding more urgent than before. He stretched out an open hand to her.

Kitha retracted her footlocks and immediately grabbed onto the sapient mech's opened hand, yanking her off the ground with easy. Right after her feet hit the ground again, her footlocks reactivated, preventing her from falling on the dirt amid the violent shaking.

And what she saw made her widen her eyes in shock.

Far off in the distance, something was slowly rising out of the ground. It was ginormous, over hundreds of kilometers wide and tall which appeared to grow larger as more of the structure itself ascended to the sky and pierced the clouds. The silvery metallic shell reflected off the sun's rays and gave off a powerful flash of near blinding light.

It looked like a giant metal pillar with a ginormous sphere nestled in the middle that slowly spun in random directions. Three large arm-like appendages levitated in circles around the lower-half, emitting bright blue lights from their sides.

Surrounding the ginormous structure were swarms of Aggressor Sentinels numbering in the hundreds of thousands! All of them obsessively flying around the thing like as though it was their nest.

"I'm detecting massive energy readings from that object. It's a ship!" Corey said.

It was true. Once the last part of the ginormous object was finally out of the ground, everyone saw massive propulsion engines at the bottom that blew out blue light.

"_This is General 'Irosomai to the outside garrison, what is happening out there?" _came in the General's voice through the radio.

Kitha was quick to respond. "This is Chief 'Kiromai, a massive unidentified Forerunner vessel has launched from within the dyson sphere and is ascending to space. Sharing visual feed."

_/RECORDING ON./_

_/CONNECTING WITH 94__TH__ NETWORK. . ./_

_/CONNECTION ESTABLISHED./_

_/SHARING LIVE FEED./_

Kitha continued watching the massive ship out in the distance, a small screen covering the top right corner of her HUD, recording what she and many of her fellow Ascetics were seeing.

The Forerunner craft slowly gained more speed the farther its engines were away from the ground. As seconds went by it flew further up into the sky, still appearing massive as it continued to gradually exit the stratosphere.

Dozens of Rahkoan naval vessels in low orbit ended up exploding as they were rammed by the ginormous Forerunner ship. Some tried to break away quickly, however, they weren't fast enough and found themselves colliding against the enormous vessel, violently crumbling to pieces.

The sentinels that swarmed around the Forerunner craft began to fly away into different directions and attack nearby Rahkoan vessels.

For Kitha, it was quite a scary thing to see.

Massive groups of the small automatons broke off to form separate swarms that engulfed around ships and started tearing them apart with their beam-based weaponry. There were glimpses of some resorting to kamikaze attacks as hundreds of sentinels resort to ramming against ships and exploding, afterward.

Kitha and everyone around her stood silently as they watched the sky become riddled with fireballs, they didn't notice that the earthquake ended.

"I have a bad. . . wait. . . I'm detecting another one!" Corey confirmed.

"Where?!" Kitha quickly turned to Corey.

"Farther away from the first vessel, just passed our zenith. Connecting my feed to everyone now."

_/RECEIVING VISUAL CONNECTION REQUEST. URGENT./_

_/REQUEST ACCEPTED./_

A smaller screen appeared on the upper right corner of her HUD just below bigger screen showed the recording of the large Forerunner vessel.

The second screen showed the second unidentified vessel which was much further away from the first, already deep into space.

"Have you told anyone about this?" Kitha asked.

"No."

Kitha reopened the communications channel. "General 'Irosomai, are you receiving the second feed?"

"_I am, 'Kiromai, and so is everyone with me,"_ the General replied.

"Something is happening to the second vessel," Corey stated.

Kitha focused her attention on the small screen on her HUD.

The front half of the second vessel began to split apart in an organized manner, separating into large triangular and rectangular segments. They started to float around the sides of the spherical core, some of them combined to form large semi-circles that spun around the rest of the body of the craft.

Streaks of bright blue light began to glow on the ginormous sphere, the semi-circle appendages span faster the brighter the light glowed. A strange ball of bright white energy formed right in front of the metallic sphere and it steadily grew in size as seconds passed.

Kitha turned to Corey again. "What are your readings telling you, now?"

"That thing is too far for me to analyze."

Suddenly, the white ball transformed into a long bright beam, appearing to be shot from the spherical core of the vessel. The very end of this beam exploded after reaching a certain distance, creating a ginormous wall of translucent energy that engulfed all space around it in breathtaking speed.

Kitha and her fellow Ascetics didn't have time to react as the unending wall of energy hit them and the very planet they stood on.

Her HUD became a mess, the screen riddled with static as the visual displays constantly popping in and out of sight with discoloration, and her shields were gone. She could see (and feel) her armor's systems fighting to remain operational, and it was doing a great job despite the circumstances, but it still had to divert some power away from parts deemed nonessential.

She looked around her body to see it covered under trickles of electricity that slowly began to die out.

And it wasn't only her, she looked around to see her fellow Ascetics having slight surges of electricity surround their armor. But other than that, they were all fine.

Kitha turned to look at Corey who seemed to have suffered the worst of it. He was on his knees, head pushed against the barricade, one hand gripping on the side as he slowly pushed himself back up.

"Brother!" Kitha said rather worryingly. She grabbed onto his sides and pulled him upward until he could stand.

"EMP. Very strong," Corey said weakly, the lights in his eyes rapidly blinking as he tried to maintain his balance. "Parts of me are disabled, but I'm okay. Body is stabilizing. Emergency systems are responding."

"By the old gods! LOOK!" frantically shouted an Ascetic.

Kitha turned back to the sky, only have her eyes widened in shock.

In front of all of them, high up in space, was a gigantic slipspace portal that nearly blanketed the _sky!_ The black core grew larger and larger as the seconds passed, like a starving monster pulling its pray into its mouth.

Rahkoan ships, alive and destroyed, were being pulled _into_ the black vortex only to disappear forever.

And the same thing was happening to the planet.

Kitha tried to send a warning through her comm. link, but found it to in-operable.

"Vorik!" Kitha shouted towards the Sangheili near the otherside, catching his full attention. "Take two men and spread word to the rest of the garrison to get inside the structure! As for everyone else: get inside! Move!"

No one said a single word but immediately did with what she said. Vorik took two other Ascetics and began running to the other parts of the building's exterior to warn the others. Everyone else ran into the opened entryways that led further inside the structure, leaving behind the heavy weaponry and equipment.

With her hands on Corey, she walked him into the entryway, gathering a little more speed after every step.

* * *

Calem landed hard against the nose of a Rahkoan Skeer-class fighter, the momentum from the landing forced the aircraft to bob downward for a second before re-aligning itself.

Calem rushed to the cockpit before the pilot could react and punched straight through the glass with ease. His fit plunged hard against the pilot's chest that left a large and painful dent, causing him to write and wheeze in absolute agony as he struggled to breathe before dying not long after. With a clenched hand around the dead pilot's collar, Calem yanked him out of his seat and threw him to the side, leaving the body to freefall below.

He shoved himself into the cockpit which destroyed the middle of the canopy, pieces glass spread all over where he sat. He connected his armor's computer with the skeer's systems, hacking into its controls.

_/HACKING IN PROGRESS. . ./_

_/HACKING COMPLETE./_

_/AUTOMATED SELF DESTRUCT DISABLED./_

"This is Black Three-One to Alpha Base, I acquired a skeer and en route to take out the bombers." Calem turned the Rahkoan fighter back around, flying towards a set of tall mountains in the distance.

"_Affirmative, Three-One. Good luck out there."_

Calem activated the boost on the fighter's controls, the engines roared with bright yellow flames as the craft accelerated in speed. As seconds passed, he was getting closer to the mountains with a group of enemy bombers coming to his visual view.

The enemy aircraft flew in something close to a V-like formation behind a squadron of skeers acting as vanguards.

Calem's hijacked skeer immediately identified the other aircraft as hostile, the targeting computer locking onto them. It broadcasted a message on his HUD in translated Rahkoan that the missiles were ready for firing.

The Demon hardened his grip on the control, however, he remained calm; getting closer to the formation of other enemy spacecraft.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a gigantic wall of shimmering translucent energy hit the groups of Rahkoan spacecraft from behind. They became surrounded by sparks of blue electricity before every single one of them started dropping out of the sky.

Calem tried to quickly steer his skeer away but it was too late, he got hit by energy wall.

The images on his HUD were going crazy with some parts of it covered in static, and he felt his MJOLNIR fighting to keep itself operable. Everything in the cockpit went offline as it was all covered in streaks of blue electricity. The skeer was falling straight towards the side of one of the mountains.

Calem tried to steer his spacecraft away, however, the effort proved fruitless as the controls failed to respond.

He continued descending downward in a rapid pace and found himself ramming through close-nit groups of very thick trees. Everything around him bumped and shook violently as his spacecraft thrashed hard against forestry almost as thick as metal alloys.

Despite the chaos going on around him, he remained calm, he went through it before and he'll get out of it again.

And then everything went black.

* * *

_**2189, Alliance Frigate SSV Austin, Alliance space, Sol System (3 years after the Reaper War)**_

Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Karson looked out the bridge viewport, watching ships from different Council species come too and fro.

There wasn't much activity to begin with, everything was basically peaceful. With the exception of trading vessels entering and leaving the Sol system, not a lot was going on.

He and his crew were assigned to police the interplanetary space that was not that far away from the Citadel and Earth; monitor traffic and maintain peace. Through the cockpit window, he could also see the ships of the 4th Patrol Group standing by in the region of space that was halfway to Mars.

And to his delight, everything was still at peace. This was something dearly needed ever since the end of the cursed war with the Reapers.

"Ensign Bradley, anything to report?" Karson turned around to the officer on his left.

"Everything is green across the board, sir," she replied astutely, not taking her eyes off her console.

"Good to hear." Karson turned back to the viewport. "Bridge crew, status?"

"Green here, Commander," said Jefferson, the _Austin's_ pilot.

"Green, sir," Dreeves came in next, the ship's copilot.

"Green, Commander," said Cleric, the _Austin's_ communications officer.

"Again, good to hear," Karson said as he kept his eyes on the viewport. "Anything happening from the comms, Cleric?"

"Nope. Just confirmations of transports and cargo freighters entering or leaving the Citadel. That's all, really," Cleric answered with strong hints of boredom.

Harkin turned over the side of his chair, looking at the bored communications officer with a bright smile. "We only have an hour left before shore leave, so hang in there."

"Ohh, _yes_," Cleric sighed in relief, pushing against his backrest with an excited smile.

Karson watched the copilot return seating normally to bring his attention back on his controls.

The Lieutenant-Commander didn't want to admit it, but he was excited for shore leave, himself.

"What are you going to do in shore leave, Cleric?" Karson asked, giving him a casual glance.

"Spend some time in the Dark Star Lounge."

Dreeves turned around to look at Cleric again. "That place? Seriously? C'mon, man, Purgatory is where all the fun is."

"It's pricier, too. I rather save my creds."

"It's worth it, though. They have some of the best drinks from whole galaxy."

"I'm not into the expensive drinks, but you do whatever you want."

"Whatever, man." Dreeves turned back around and returned to what he was doing.

"Is that where you're going to spend your time in?" Karson asked.

"Yes, sir." The copilot gave him a brief glance, his excited smile not faltering. "Me and some of the guys from CIC are gonna party on the dance floor. It's going to be a hell of a time."

"Just remember not to party too hard." The Commander turned his attention to Jefferson. "What about you, Jefferson, what are your plans?"

"Spend time with my wife on the Presidium. Maybe we'll hang out in Flux if she wants too," Jefferson replied as his eyes never left his controls.

"You're married to an Asari, right?" Harkin asked.

"Yep, and for over six years now. Tomorrow's going to be our anniversary, so we're going to celebrate it today."

"Make the most of it, man."

"We will."

Dreeves turned to look at Karson. "What are you going to do, Commander?"

A slight smile formed on his face, he's been wanting to share what he has planned once they've docked to the Citadel. "I'm going to-"

"Hold on a sec, everyone! I'm a getting an emergency message from the 4th Patrol Group. Urgent on all channels." Cleric's earlier bored expression was gone, completely replaced with urgency as he hurriedly typed commands on his console.

"Bring it up to the bridge," Karson commanded.

"Yes, sir. Feed is audio only."

The bridge's intercoms were filled with nothing but static, however, that began to die down as it was replaced with the sounds emergency alarms. The sounds of people from the other ship were heard frantically running from station to station, shouting information and commands at each other in confusion and fear. Machinery could be short circuiting along with small explosions.

Things were in chaos.

"_. . .day! Mayday! Mayday! The 4__th__ Patrol Group is caught in an unknown gravitational anomaly! We can't evacuate! I repeat: we can't-Bzzzt!"_

"I'm picking up radiation from the 4th's location and. . . holy Christ it's going off the scale." Dreeves could only watch his holographic display in terror as the radiation readings literally exceed the limit.

"Guys! Look out the window!" Jefferson shouted as he stood out of his seat.

Everyone did what he said and just stared out the thick panels of glass in speechless shock.

Not that far from where the 4th Patrol Group was located, space was literally rippling around them. Streaks of white electricity bounced from ship to ship as space around them distorted in various ways; some of them stretched and 'squished' repeatedly, others rapidly widened and pushed outward before shrinking into crumbled pieces. The odd electricity became more numerous and erratic every passing second as the visual distortions began to emit bright white lights.

And suddenly, something ripped open in the fabric of space (and possibly time) itself, completely consuming the 4th Patrol Group as they were no more.

Now all that was left was some kind of black hole that was more than big enough to swallow Earth. The sides radiated in bright white energies that moved in a swirling motion.

The bridge crew starred in awe and terror at the gigantic vortex outside their window. They couldn't see Mars as it was completely blocked by the immense spacial anomaly, some of them began to think it could've been swallowed because this thing was twice its size. No one uttered a word as they watched the white swirling energies radiate from the vortex.

And then things began to come out of the black hole. _A lot_ of things.

It was hard to see from where he stood, but Karson could make out the shapes of strange vessels coming out of the vortex by the hundreds, all of them seemingly drifting into space.

The Lieutenant-Commander felt more shock as he saw what seemed like _thousands_ of more ships drift out of the portal, along with (what he could tell) _millions_ of pieces of debris. It didn't take long for that region of space to look like a ginormous garbage heap of floating parts, a scavenger's wet dream.

The scary thing was that there was still more coming out of the vortex.

And then something more unbelievable happened.

"Oh my _god!_ Is that what I think it is?!" Jefferson asked in shock but didn't receive an answer.

Slowly, the side of a planetoid pushed out of the middle of the vortex, along with more strange ships and debris.

Once the rest of the planet was out of in space, the vortex started to shrink into itself until all traces of it vanished.

Leaving an unknown planet surrounded by thousands of ships and debris.

Along with a confused and shocked crew.

Karson finally broke the silence as he spoke up. "Cleric, get me a line to Command ASAP."

* * *

**Author's Notes: Here's the fourth chapter! Now the actual crossover of this crossover is beginning! ^w^**

**I wanted to do things a little differently than what I usually see in other Halo/Mass Effect fanfictions: having the setting take place AFTER the Reaper War.**

**However, we won't see much conflict happen throughout the Mass Effect Galaxy (not yet anyway). For now, all of the excitement will happen on the Shield World.**

**All of this is still experimental and new, so please be easy on me.**

**Anyway, enjoy the read and do leave a review and let me know what you think! ^w^**

**And if you really do like this fic, please give it a fave or follow.**


	5. Chapter 5: Interrupted Peace

_**2189, en route to Citadel Military Command Chamber, Citadel, Sol System (above Earth's orbit; 40 minutes after Vortex Incident)**_

Councilor David Anderson marched down the long corridor in a hurry, Turian guards walked beside him as escorts.

Things were an absolute mess.

All of Sol was panicking, and military channels from all races were chaotic.

Ever since the incident with the mysterious vortex, _everything_ within Sol and any reachable system went into Red Alert. All ground forces were in combat ready status and naval fleets from nearby systems mobilized in Sol.

As of this very moment, the fleets were told to converge in the region of space between Earth and the unknown planet, standby and await further orders.

Civilians were instructed to stay at home or were sent to designated shelters, which there weren't that many of and it still infuriated Anderson to this day.

People down on Earth and in the Citadel were starting to panic, but most try to remain calm. However, it doesn't help that troops were beginning to set up checkpoints in public streets and have certain areas locked down.

Martial Law hasn't been declared as of yet, however, it as well will be with so much military assets being deployed everywhere.

They have defeated the Reapers, yes, but the damages left behind was _insurmountable_. Even by today, no one could truly form an estimate of how big the destruction was; so much was lost.

Despite all races, every individual pitching in to repair the galaxy, there was still so much devastation. It's a wonder they were able to reconstruct most of Earth and the Citadel in such a short time.

Thinking about this always brought hope to Anderson, hope that was needed.

But he would feel a tinge of anger and sadness to know that the galaxy would still be broken for the next generations. He doesn't know how long until everything comes close to being remotely the same again, but it will take a very long time.

Most of the Mass Relay Network was still offline from the aftereffects of the Crucible and so many people have been longing to see their homes again.

Anderson decided to put these thoughts aside, now was not the time to dwell on them.

They've all survived their fight against the Reapers, they'll be able to fight whatever hell happens now.

Anderson slowed his pace as soon he was getting close to another set of large doors, Turian guards standing close to the sides.

"Councilor Anderson," one of the guards addressed dutifully and respectfully that was followed by a salute. His partner adjacent to him followed suit. "The rest of the Councilors are waiting inside."

"Thank you," Anderson replied with a light bow.

The guard activated his omni-tool and began typing commands on its surface. "Councilor Anderson has arrived, I'm opening the doors now."

"_Thank you, Sergeant,"_ came Sparatus's voice over his comm link.

_Ding._

The guards stepped further away to the side as the doors opened which Anderson walked inside without hesitation.

His Turian escorts didn't follow, they remained outside in the halls and took positions among the walls as the doors closed.

Anderson looked around the chamber he was in. He's only heard of it before but has never actually seen it in person. Most likely because his time as a Councilor (both before and after the Reaper invasion) did not have a lot going on that warranted immense military action.

The chamber wasn't too big, basically half the size of an auditorium; and was a round, circular room.

Almost everything about this place was similar to the strategic centers found on military vessels throughout the galaxy (like the _Normandy's_ War Room) with the exception of the Council's more fancy aesthetics and architecture.

Dozens of fold-up chairs were all around the room, placed in a way that it looked to be encircling the very middle. The pathway in front of Anderson 'split' the chairs apart, allowing the needed space for anyone to walk into the most important part of the chamber.

Trails of blue lights illuminated from the floor, lighting up some areas in the chamber. However, this doesn't seem enough as the whole room was mostly dim.

In the center of it all was a tactical display table, the holographic screen on its surface illuminating a bright blue light; shining off the Councilors that stood beside it.

Tevos stood in the spot where she was always the first person to see, while Sparatus and Valern were stood across from each other.

And then there two people that Anderson wasn't expecting to see, but by god, he was happy to see them, nonetheless.

Standing beside Sparatus were Admiral Hackett and Shepard in holographic form, as it seemed they could only join this meeting through long-range communications.

This brought a needed smile to Anderson's face as it brought some nice comfort into his mind after seeing two of his most trusted friends.

"Good to see you again, Anderson." Shepard smiled, something that washed away some the unease on the Admiral's mind. "The Councilors were thinking about starting without you."

Anderson chuckled as he walked towards an empty spot on the table. "I can't blame them, it's a wonder I got up here at all. Things have gotten crazy on Earth."

"Things are getting crazy everywhere, Anderson. We hold no qualms of you being late," Sparatus said understandingly.

"Thank you, Sparatus." Anderson gave Sparatus a light bow.

"Now let's get to the reason why we're here," Valern stated, all eyes focused on him. He activated his omni-tool and began typing commands on its interface which began to have reactions from display table.

A blue, three-dimensional hologram of the unknown planet appeared before them, watching it slowly rotate as they took in as much detail as they could. It was surrounded by millions of pieces of debris and _thousands_ of ships, all of which were simply floating in close proximity in the planet's orbit.

No one said it, but they already theorized that the unknown vessels were either disabled or just dead in space.

And how couldn't it be? Those ships were drifting in the vacuum with no clear direction, no organization. Many of them were shown to be floating upside down or on their sides.

Towards Anderson's side were the holographic displays of the Coalition fleets: a massive wall of ships that nearly stretched from one side of Sol to the next.

Seeing this instantly reminded Anderson of the final day of the Reaper War, when the fleet very much like this one came to liberate Earth; fight the Reapers one last time.

"Admiral Hackett, you have the floor," Valern said as he kept his omni-tool on.

Hackett straightened himself and let out a brief breath of air before he began. _"At 1145 hours the 4__th__ Patrol Group sent an emergency message that they were caught in a gravitational anomaly. Not long after, a massive vortex opened and all of these ships and debris began coming out from the other side. Right after this planet came out of the vortex, it closed. The 4__th__ Patrol Group is considered lost with all hands, as well as over a dozen civilian freighters that were in proximity to the event."_

"Has there been any activity from the planet or those ships, afterwards?" Anderson asked.

"_No."_ Hackett shook his head. _"We've been running scans on any ships drifting close to us, and the readings say they're running on low power; possibly diverted to life support."_

"Lifesigns?"

"_Lots of them, Anderson," _came in Shepard. _"The crew of those ships are definitely alive."_

"And you were under orders _not_ to get in close proximity of those vessels." Valern gave a chastising gesture to Shepard.

"It was the only way, Councilor, they were too far for our scans to reach them. And there's no doubt the data we retrieve could be valuable, right now," Shepard defended.

"It was still a _dangerous_ risk and you knew that. We don't know the true intentions of the species controlling those vessels, nor how they would react to an Alliance frigate flying in close proximity."

"We kept ourselves at the appropriate distance, no way would they interpret that as hostile."

"It doesn't excuse you for disobeying a direct order."

"Everyone please, now is not the time for this," addressed Tevos, garnering all attention on her. She looked at Shepard with a calm and serious look. "Shepard, the data you gathered could be of great importance, which is true. However, what you did could clearly put us at risk, something you were very aware of. The consequences will be discussed in further detail later, but _please_ Shepard, we need to be working together."

No one understood that message harder than him, the Savior of the Galaxy or the Great Shepard as everyone in known space came to known him by. A strong sense of irony washing over him, reminded the struggles he faced while trying to unite everyone to fight against the Rapers.

Now here he was, being told that from one of the very people he had to persuade about it before.

Shepard found it a little funny the more he thought about it.

"I understand," he replied. There was no complaint or rebellion in his voice, only acknowledgement.

Tevos turned to Admiral Hackett. "Please, Admiral, resume your findings."

"_I've had some ships scout a little further ahead to gather whatever intel they can get from all this – nothing too close."_

All of the Councilors nodded.

"_It is established that all of this spacecraft belong to a species we've never made contact with before."_ Hackett lift an arm to activate his omni-tool, taking control of the hologram.

The holograpghic image changed, the displays of the planet and the massive debri field disappeared only to be replaced by something else.

In front of them lay a hologram of one of the unknown vessels, enlarged for a good portion of its details to be seen by everyone.

It was a strange thing to look at to Anderson, he's finding it odd to believe it was a ship at all.

This thing looked like a fat cleaver with rocket engines shoved on its back. The architecture of the hull was archaic and primitive, if not outright savage. He can't help but guess that the designers of these ships wanted them to look as aggressive as possible.

And then there were the weapon emplacements.

The heavy guns placed onto the side of the hull. . .

"This thing is a warship," Anderson said as intently looked at the hologram. "Look at all those cannons around the hull. I can see plenty of smaller turrets around the midsection."

"_Not only that but this very ship I'm showing you is two kilometers long."_

Everyone, including Shepard, looked at the Alliance Admiral in expressions filled with surprise.

"Are you. . . are you certain, Hackett?" Anderson asked, nearly stuttering as he spoke. "That would make this thing as big as Harbinger."

"_I know. I had my crews rerun the scans multiple times and all come the same. There is no doubt about it, these things are huge, and some of them – the ships closer to that planet – are estimated to be a lot bigger."_

"Spirits. . ." Sparatus muttered in as he let out a strained breath.

"_We have to be very careful about this Councilors,"_ Hackett continued. _"For there is a big chance these unknowns could react to us with sheer hostility."_

Everyone remained silent for a while as they were too shocked at how big those unknown ships could really be. Knowing that they were built for combat didn't alleviate their worries, either.

"We can't come to such conclusions, yet. We have yet to contact them," Tevos started, ending the strained silence. "And we can't just judge them because of their aesthetics. It seems they were caught in a devastating event related to that vortex, possibly survivors from something even more terrible. That could explain why they've mounted so many weapons on their ships in this fashion. There is still a chance they're not what we see on the outside."

"_You're implying we make First Contact with them?"_ Shepard asked.

Tevos nodded. "Indeed, Shepard, but not without precautions." She turned to Hackett. "Has anyone in the fleet sent a First Contact Package?"

"_We have but their signal is very weak and alien to our own, so we're unsure if they received it or not."_

"That's to be expected," Tevos said with a sigh.

"We can all tell you have a plan for this, Tevos. Tell us," said Sparatus.

The Asari Councilor stood straight up as she eyed everyone in the room. "It's imperative we establish contact with this new species as some of them could be dying in their own ships. I suggest we send an all Asari diplomatic team under the guard of a Spectre to whatever ship is the closest to ours."

No one argued with that, the Asari had always been well-established in diplomatic talks throughout galactic history. Even with the end of the Reaper War, their reputation for handling politics and diplomacy still has not changed.

"_Judging by the ships' low power, your diplomatic team may need to cut some doors open," _Hackett said. _"They'll warrant that as hostile action."_

"That they will, which is why we need to be very careful with this."

"_I have an idea."_ All eyes were on Shepard. _"We send a small supply medi-gel to the diplomatic team as a gift of goodwill to these unknowns. There's no doubt they will have wounded aboard."_

The room filled with silence as everyone took the time to ponder the idea, something they already showed signs of agreeing too.

"A very feasible suggestion, Shepard, I'll have a few shipments procured," Tevos said with agreement.

"_And if these unknowns prove to truly hostile?"_ Hackett asked.

"_Then we do with what we did to the Reapers: we fight back," _Shepard answered.

Anderson couldn't help but make a cocky grin.

* * *

_**2189, SSV Normandy CIC, Sol System**_

Tali'Zorah walked down the path that led to the cockpit, passing by many Alliance crewmen as they did their work, all of them too busy to notice her.

Further away from her was Garrus as he stood beside the pilot's chair, no doubt talking to Joker as he also looked out the window.

Things have certainly calmed down ever since the vortex closed, however, things were still far from being peaceful.

Communication channels were still a jumbled mess, it's nearly impossible to send messages due to the intense flux happening in the network. Only persons with high-level clearances could establish clear lines without much difficulty but there was worry that may also become an issue.

With a fleet of this magnitude, more and more high prioritized calls were being made among high-ranking officers which further clouded the private channels; something that hasn't been seen before the final days of the Reaper War.

Tali assisted with other communications officers by adding her own personal tweeks on the comm channels, improving the organization software and lessening delays.

This has helped things tremendously, but she'll have to come back to it for routine checks and improvements.

Her thoughts were cut off as she saw Garrus turn around, his mandibles lightly quivered as he gave her the Turian version of a smile before turning back to the window.

"What's the situation, Joker," Tali said as she walked beside the pilot.

In front of her, many kilometers away, was the very thing that's gotten everyone on edge.

A planet surrounded by what could be millions of pieces of debris.

Tali couldn't help but recall that this would be considered a massive treasure trove to her people before the War (still would be today); such resources and technology would be invaluable if it didn't look so haunting.

"Answer is still the same like the last five times I was asked: green, standing by, and really damn terrified," Joker responded in his usual demeanor as sifted data on his console. It was obvious he was trying not to have the stress get to him.

"We've handled the Reapers, we should hold our own against those ships," Garrus said.

"Not wanting to be a massive bummer, Garrus, but. . . just look at that!" Joker pointed to the window. "There's bound to be _thousands_ \- maybe _hundreds_ _of thousands_ of those things over there. And have you seen the visuals sent by the scouts? Those things are armed to the friggin' teeth! Ugly and weird, but really damn armed!"

"And so were the Reapers, but we took care of them," Garrus stated calmly. "We can hold our own against these guys."

"Easier said than done. We don't know what the hell they are."

"Yeah, that's right. We don't know who or what they are, but they could be friendly. Maybe they're a race of sexy aliens that could put the Asari to shame," Garrus said with hints of playfulness.

Tali couldn't help but roll her eyes from hearing that, however, it also made her smile as she saw it help bring back some positivity into Joker.

"Pfft!" Joker smiled widely as he tried not to laugh. "You've been spending way too much time with Vega."

"A little but I try not to have him rub off on me too much."

"Just be sure you don't tell him that. Poor guy's not going to stop thinking about it," Joker said as he displayed a much more positive mood.

"What are you doing, right now?" Tali asked curiously.

"Checking the status of all systems and helping relay messages from some of the ships. By the way, Tali, thank you so much for improving the comms software. You just helped relieve so much crap from the channels."

"No problem, whatsoever. Improving tech is what I do best," Tali replied happily. "How about I give you a hand with this, sifting through all of that is definitely not easy to do alone."

"No, no, it's all good. God, you'd be surprised with the amount of times I had to help out with this. But thank you, Tali." Joker turned around to look at the Quarian with a warm smile before getting back to work.

Tali gingerly put a hand on the pilot's shoulder and gave him a friendly pat.

"How has the Quarian people been handling this?" asked Joker.

"Much like everyone else, we've put everything on lockdown and martial law is declared. Han'Gerrel will be arriving with half of the Heavy Fleet to provide assistance," Tali explained.

"Wait, what about the other half?"

"They'll be further separated into small groups to help reinforce other fleets in the nearby systems. This was a strategy proposed by Hackett."

"And everyone on Rannoch?"

"They're prepared as well. Zaal'Koris escorted all of the civilian populations in underground military bunkers that were constructed before the war with the Geth. And Shala'Raan is organizing defenses in our system."

Tali couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness whenever she thought of her homeworld.

A sentiment that was shared among all Quarians that joined the final battle over Earth.

Even with though they've accomplished great strides into reactivating some of the Mass Relays, it was nothing but a scratch to the whole network. And it didn't help that the Perseus Veil was almost on the other side of the galaxy.

It was something that still upset her people on the Heavy Fleet, they reclaimed their homeworld; defeated a threat that endangered the whole galaxy; now they can't return home!

After 300 years of spacefaring exile, her people finally got Rannoch back, but have become separated from it again!

However, knowing that Quarian civilians were now safe and starting anew on the homeworld's surface was more than enough to calm them.

It further helped that communication channels between Sol and Rannoch were repaired sometime after the War. This granted the Quarians from the Heavy Fleet to contact their loved ones and keep spirits high.

"You certain those old bunkers could protect your people?" asked Garrus.

"Certainly. Like everything on Rannoch, the Geth kept them maintained after our exile, some of them showed improvements upon their design."

"Well, that's really good to hear."

"It is. . . I still miss them," Tali said in lament tone, remembering Legion.

At the mention of AIs, Joker looked at the empty console on his right. The look on his face turning more somber. "Yeah. . ."

* * *

_**3350, Unknown Shield World, MWR occupied Forerunner Structure, Sublevels; now abbreviated Outpost Deivas**_

Kitha walked into the room as the doors closed behind her.

Corey stood directly at the other side, a duo of Caddis drones flying around him as they scanned his body from different angles.

An Ascetic technician stood beside him, reading the data retrieved from drones on his TACPAD. A small holographic figure of Corey's body float above his arm, along with three small screens displaying information that's no doubt about the AI's 'health'.

"Will he be fine?" Kitha asked as she walked towards the technician.

"He's already recovered." He turned off the holograms on his TACPAD. "The harm inflicted from the EMP was minimal, and his body's self-repair systems already fixed the damages. He is free to go."

Kitha gave the technician a nod before looking back at her friend. "Come, Corey, there's some things I need to talk to you about."

Corey made a few steps forward before stopping to look at the technician, the Caddis drones flying away to different parts of the room.

"Thank you for your assistance. Your work is always appreciated," Corey said in a tone of genuine thanks.

"For it is my duty, brother," the Sangheili technician responded. "Fight well and look after yourself out there."

"To you as well." Corey turned around and walked behind Kitha as they made their way outside of the room.

Right after the door closed, Kitha turned to face her fellow comrade and inform him of what has happened while he was being checked on. However, he began to speak first.

"Pardon the interruption, Chief, but earlier I didn't detect any traces of friendly networks, not even the _domain_ of all things," he said worryingly. "What happened while I was sent for repairs?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Kitha's helmet began to disassemble itself around her piece by piece, folding into themselves into smaller components before sliding into an opening below the back of her neck.

The face that was hidden under the helmet was filled with grace and youth, however, still gave off the essence of a warrior. Her bright amber eyes staring deep onto Corey with seriousness, something that always kept his attention focused on her.

"That slipspace portal took this whole planet somewhere to a location we do not know."

"What about the fleet?" questioned Corey.

"They weren't positioned anywhere close to the portal when it happened, so we will have no naval assistance until we find out what's going on."

"Is the same said for the Rahkoan fleet?"

"No. Theire ships were pulled into the portal with us. But according to our scans, they're still offline from the EMP."

"But have you managed to reconnect to MWR networks outside the planet?"

"No, not a single one and we are still checking."

"Perhaps the equipment is still damaged."

"It is not. We have our Huragok tending to the relays and they found _nothing_."

Corey didn't say anything but stood there, silent and motionless.

". . . This is bad," Corey finally said.

"It is. General 'Irosomai held a meeting earlier. We don't know where we are, but it is certain we're not anywhere close to MWR space."

"That would mean we're _outside_ of the Milky Way galaxy," Corey said with rising concern.

"Yes. But don't fret, we're not in the black void. We sent a vanguard to check the outside, and there's clear evidence we're in a solar system with a healthy star."

Corey was about bring up the possibility that they could be in an undiscovered location in the Milky Way but immediately tore that down.

If they were still in their own galaxy, there would've been strong connections to the MWR networks no matter where they were. As long as a person was in the Milky Way, even if they were by the edge of known space, there would always be strong signals to friendly communications. Even if something happened to severe that connection, it would automatically restore and improve itself in a matter of minutes.

Corey ran more calculations in his head and he wasn't liking the results at all.

"This could only mean we're in a different galaxy," he said.

"Many of our fellow brethren theorized the same, but that is still a theory. We need more information, and that can't be done while we're underground."

"Then what is our next move?"

"We're going re-establish contact with the rest of our forces on the shield world. We managed to re-open communications with other garrisons, but the rest are still missing." Kitha reactivated her helmet, the plates of metal clicked as they reformed around her head. "I'm leading a squad to the areas east of us. There are supposed to be friendly outposts there. We're going to check on our brethern to see if they require aid, and re-establish comm lines."

"You make it sound like I'm not coming with you."

"You're not, my friend." Kitha shook her head. "You're needed here: orders from 'Zekumai."

"I understand." Corey nodded. "When will you depart?"

"In ten minutes but I must check on the squad."

"Then you be careful out there. Don't let too much of that Sangheili pride affect your judgement."

Kitha couldn't resist the urge to chuckle. "I won't, my friend. And you be safe as well."

With that being said, Kitha turned around and began walking to a different part of the sublevel.

* * *

_**2189, Sol System, Onboard Unknown Alien Vessel**_

Spectre Aleiza L'Vari stood in front of the large bulkhead with Representative Mairon K'Nir standing beside her.

Over a dozen meters and closing was the squad of Asari Commandos, all equipped with airtight combat suits to protect them from the vacuum of space. They huddled around a large crate of medi-gel, gently directing it towards the bulkhead as they floated in the black expanse.

Much further away from the Commandos was their frigate, the _Niacal's Light_, unmoving as it maintained its position.

"Sioni One, status update," the Asari Spectre said over her comms.

"_We are green, Spectre. No damages on cargo," _replied the squad leader.

"Affirmative, Sioni One."

"_By the Goddess, this ship is ginormous,"_ said one of the Commandos in a tone of awe and fear.

"_And destructive. It reminds me of Krogan battlecruisers used in the Rebellions," _remarked another.

"_No. Say what you will of Krogan but they're not all guns. This thing looks like it's built by barbarians, savages. This thing was built for nothing but war."_

"_Cut the chatter, sisters. We're almost to the bulkhead. Be ready to activate your mag-boots,"_ commanded the squad leader.

Seeing that they were getting closer, L'Vari and K'Nir stepped closer to the side wall to get out of their way.

In an organized fashion, the Commandos stepped onto the metal flooring one pair at a time before taking position by the far sides.

The large crate continued to float towards the bulkhead until the pair of Asari from the back grabbed hold of its handles, pulling it near the back of the group.

"Lieutenant, cut the door open," L'Vari ordered.

"Yes, ma'am." The Asari squad leader walked towards the center bulkhead, omni-tool activated.

A large holographic disk formed underneath the senior Commando's which started to spin rapidly. She placed one side of the disk against the door, causing it to slowly cut into the thick metal as sparks began to fly in all directions.

L'Vari activated her omni-tool, turning on the communication channel that was connecting them with the _Niacal's Light._

"This is Spectre L'Vari to _Niacal's Light_, come in."

"_Affirmative, Spectre, we read you and have visual," _came the voice of the frigate's Commander.

"Affirmative, Commander. I'm going to activate my helmet cam, now. Standby." L'Vari typed started typing more commands on her omni-tool, stopping when she saw a small screen appear on the upper right corner of her HUD.

She then established another transmission that connected her camera with the frigate.

"_Affirmative, Spectre, we are receiving the live feed, now. Shall we contact the Council?"_

"Not yet. We're still in the process of opening the doors. I'll radio in when we're ready."

"_Affirmative, Spectre."_

L'Vari looked back at the squad leader who was still in the process of cutting the doors open. Unfortunately, she didn't make much progress, only making up to a foot from the starting point.

"Is there anything wrong, Lieutenant?" L'Vari asked.

"_The ship's alloys are sturdier than we anticipated; cutting a sizable opening is going to take time,"_ answered the squad leader as she continued her work.

"Do what you can." L'Vari turned to look at Representative K'Nir, who simply looked back in return. "We may be here for a while, Representative."

"_That will be fine, Spectre."_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Fifth chapter is out. Now we're going into the Mass Effect sides of things. The actual crossover part of this fanfic is about to begin! ^w^

**Brother Bov:** Thank you for that review, Brother Bov! I am still learning, so I'm not surprised I've made some mistakes here and there; conversations can be tricky sometimes, but I'm getting a better grasp of it.

And I do remember reading a crossover or two of the Halo-verse bringing a planet into slipspace. I forgot what the name of the fics were, but technically it has been done before.

**Guest:** Mass Effect Universe is confused! XD


	6. Chapter 6: Bloodied Diplomacy

_**2189, Sol System, Unknown ship**_

"_They're getting angrier!"_

"_Keep your weapon down, huntress!"_ shouted the Asari Captain.

Things were bad.

Not long after meeting the owners of the ship and things were already getting _really _bad.

They were inside in what appeared to be a cafeteria. Tables and chairs scattered everywhere, many of them looked as though they were violently thrown against the walls. Rotting pieces of meat and other organic substances (that they guessed could be food) littered the floors.

Even with helmets still on, the Asari had to fight the urge to gag as some of the foul odors passed the filters. However, this was least of their concerns.

Specter L'Vari slowly stepped backward to the path where they came, beckoning the rest of the Asari to do the same; maintaining a calm composure as they try not to raise their rifles.

They were nearly surrounded by large groups of armored aliens that possibly possess abilities that were yet to be seen, some probably having concealed weapons. It was their best interest not to further agitate them in any way.

Representative K'Nir moved closer to her, eyes filled with fear and worry.

L'Vari watched the large crowds of aliens before them, screaming, hissing and banging their fists onto the ground. They angrily shouted phrases in their own language that none of them could understand but the overall message was clear: they weren't welcomed here.

To make matters worse: radio connection with friendly forces were cut for unknown reasons.

"Keep walking back slowly, sisters," L'Vari said calmly as she (and everyone else) slowly backed away. "Maintain your composure. No sudden movements."

"_Specter, behind you!"_ warned the Representative.

L'Vari turned around only to see two of the unknown aliens running from within the corridor behind her.

The Specter was about to aim down her Carnifix but halted her action almost at the last second when the two aliens stopped running several meters before them.

She watched them look at her in in shock and confusion. Even though they were covered head to toe in armor, L'Vari could still read their body language.

However, they became much more aggressive; hunching forward as they let out angry shrieks like the rest of their comrades.

L'Vari was starting to worry. She doesn't see any weaponry in their hands, but that didn't mean they weren't possibly hiding them in their armor.

"We have two blocking the exit," L'Vari addressed with rising concern, her eyes locked onto the aliens in the corridor.

"_We have more coming from the side entrances!" shouted the Captain. "Have you managed to reconnect with the cruiser?"_

"Negative! Radio is still down."

"_It's beginning to get overcrowded in here!" _came in the voice of a worried Commando._ "With all do respect, madams, what's the plan?"_

L'Vari wouldn't dare turn around, her attention focused on the two aliens in the corridor as they snarled and hissed at her.

However, she still heard the sheer chaos that was coming from all over the room.

A massive, twisted chorus of feral screams and shrieks that echoed all around them, some of the aliens continued shouting aggressive phrases in their own tongue. The floor beneath them shook and thumped as the large crowd of unknown aliens repeatedly stumped on the ground with anger.

This grew louder and more chaotic as seconds passed, the feral shouts and shrieks becoming so much harder to bare.

This also told L'Vari that more of these crazy aliens were converging around them.

And it was starting to drive her crazy.

'_Shit!'_

"Okay, everyone. Push them away with biotic blasts! Now!" L'Vari shouted as streaks of waving blue energy emanated from her body.

"_What?!"_ Representative K'Nir nearly gasped in shock.

"First Contact has failed! We need to get out of here!"

Before she allowed K'Nir to speak any further, L'Vari let out a biotic blast to the aliens in the corridor, sending them flying a few meters down the corridor.

Their armored bodies banged hard against the floor but that didn't have much of an effect as she hoped. They were dazed but quickly recovering, rushing to push themselves off the ground.

More shock filled L'Vari's mind.

A biotic push like that was meant to send a whole crowd flying.

"Sioni squad use heavy blasts against these aliens!" L'Vari began charging more biotic energy throughout her body, the blue hue glowed brighter and more intense.

She unleashed another shockwave that was much stronger than the last one as it hit against the two aliens.

And it hit them hard.

They let out painful shrieks that echoed throughout the corridor as they flew all the way back, consumed by the darkness.

The cafeteria was consumed in a huge uproar.

The dense crowds of aliens saw what happened and their tempers were becoming more ballistic. The whole room was filled with nothing more than screams and curses that were filled with rage as they waved clenched fists at them and other aggressive gestures.

Many of them on the front were getting ready to charge.

Almost simultaneously, all of the Commandoes let out biotic blasts onto the crowds, pushing them back.

Loud thuds and clanging echoed throughout the room as so many of the armored aliens were pushed against themselves or to the ground. Many of them shrieked in pain or anger as they tried to push their dazed comrades off of them but had difficulty doing so.

All that was left before the Asari were massive piles of toppled aliens.

And some of them were regaining their footing.

L'Vari took this as their best chance. "Alright, everyone out now! Representative, stay behind me!"

"_You heard her, Sioni!" _The Captain turned as she started to walk to the Spectre. _"Let's g-!"_

**BOOM!**

The Captain's chest suddenly exploded, blood and chunks of flesh splattered on the floor, rendering her torso as nothing more than a massive hole.

Everyone couldn't help but watch her in shock and horror, frozen from the sudden visceral display as she stood on her feet, completely motionless.

And then the Captain collapsed on the ground, more blood leaving from the huge gap that used to be her chest.

"_FARISSA!"_ frantically screamed the squad's second-in-command.

A nearby Commando grabbed her by behind and began pulling her away.

"_There's nothing we can do about it! We have to-!"_

**BOOM!**

Before the squadmate could finish, she _and_ the Lieutenant were suddenly ripped in half as a heavy projectile shot through their midsections like paper.

Their broken bodies fell on the metal floor with hard thuds, covering it with chunks of their organs and blood.

"Everyone get out now!" shouted L'Vari as she grabbed K'Nir and began running down the corridor.

She didn't even check to see if the rest of the squad was behind her, all she did was run; the safety of the Representative was always the main priority.

L'Vari could only hope that everyone actually made it and were catching up behind her, however, those same hopes were answered to her in a different way.

More loud gunshots echoed throughout the halls, reminiscent to cannon fire.

This sparked a kind of fear L'Vari haven't felt since the Reaper War, making her run faster with K'Nir in tow. Her speed slowly increased by the second as the adrenalin rush began to fill her mind.

"_Spectre, we have to stop!"_ shouted K'Nir.

"No! Are you mad!?"

"_The Commandoes are behind us! They need to catch up!"_

"You should've said so," L'Vari growled in clenched teeth as she made an abrupt stopped, turning around to see who was left.

There was only five. Five Asari out of the twelve that they started with. All of them running frantically towards the Spectre and Representative, hints of anger and fear could be read from their movements.

L'Vari peered over the side to see if any more Asari were running behind, but unfortunately, there weren't. A feeling of dread began to fill her thoughts as she could only guess to what happened to them.

They began to slow down once they got closer to the duo, with the squads Sergeant angrily stomping towards L'Vari.

"_You nearly left us!" _the Sergeant shouted in anger. _"Now we're all that's left!"_

"I told all of you to run!" the Spectre shouted back defensively.

"_ENOUGH!"_ K'Nir screamed as she rushed in between L'Vari and the Sergeant. _"There is no time for this! We need to get off this ship!"_

Suddenly a series of shrieks and roars echoed throughout the corridor, like packs of hungry predators that were abruptly awaken from hibernation.

Out of instinct, everyone turned to the source of the noise; the path where they all ran from.

And then, the rustling and constant clanging of dozens of footsteps began to echo through the metallic walls of the corridor. And they got louder after every passing second.

"Get back to running!" L'Vari grabbed K'Nir's arm again and began sprinting.

The Commandoes did not object to this and followed suit, keeping pace behind the Spectre.

L'Vari brought out her free hand and activated her omni-tool, attempting to reopen connections with the cruiser.

"Come on, come. . ." L'Vari muttered under clenched teeth as she watch her omni-tool try to find a line.

/SEARCHING FOR SECURED LINE./

/STANDBY. . ./

"Goddess! Come one."

"_What are you doing, Spectre?!"_ angrily barked the Sergeant.

"Trying to get ahold of the cruiser!"

_Ding._

/LINE FOUND. NIACAL'S LIGHT./

"Yes!" L'Vari cheered. "Niacal's Light, come in! This is Spectre L'Var!"

"_We read you, Spectre. We apologize for the radio silence. There was a-"_

"No time!" L'Vari shouted over the radio. "Aliens on the ship are hostile. I repeat: the aliens are hostile! Open a line with the council, now!"

* * *

_**A few minutes ago; Citadel Military Command Chamber**_

Fifteen minutes.

It had been fifteen minutes ever since communications with the representative team was cut from a series of malfunctions.

Anderson was getting restless.

Everyone in the room was on edge in some form.

Even though Councilor Tevos would refuse to say it, he could tell that she was experiencing anxiety for the loss of radio contact with the representative team.

Everyone had their eyes on the holographic form of Admiral Tali'Zorah who stood behind Shepard; whom of which called her in for the meeting for her aid.

No one complained about the notion because of the Quarians' expertise as extremely skilled engineers, and proven to be very reliable during the War. And Tali had to be one of the best ones out of her own people.

Sadly, that didn't help lower anymore of the sheer anxiety everyone was going through.

Everyone just stood silently and watched the Quarian admiral work on her omni-tool which Anderson could tell was starting to make her nervous.

Hackett was no longer with them as he was needed to monitor the fleet.

"_How's your progress, Tali?"_ Shepard asked as he turned to the Quarian.

"_I'm almost done. I just need another minute and the Niacal's Light will reestablish communications with the Asari team," _Tali answered as she typed commands on her omni-tool in quick succession.

"Thank you, Admiral Zorah. Your aid in this instance means so much to me and my people," Tevos said graciously.

"_It's no problem, Councilor and. . . done! Okay, comm officers should be able to reconnect with the team, now."_

Tevos typed commands on the holographic interface, activating the communication line with the Asari cruiser.

"This is Councilor Tevos to Captain Rissana, come in."

"_Copy, Councilor. We are working to reconnect with the team now. Please tell the Quarian admiral our thanks. Out."_

Anderson glanced towards Tali to see Shepard give her a playful nudge to her side, something that she recuperated in return.

Anderson couldn't help but smile to this.

Outside of the _Normandy's_ crew, he was one of the first people to know about their relationship. He always supported it, and he couldn't be happier to see the love and affection between them grow even further.

This has become quite the inspiring tale among the Quarians: a human Spectre and Savior of the Galaxy, have such love to someone of their own people.

"Please keep it professional you two," Valern said in a calm but begrudging tone. "We are still in the middle of something ginormous. Save the romance in your own time."

Tali's bright violet eyes narrowed to the Salarian Councilor as she folded her arms, obviously annoyed but refused to say anything.

Shepard took no offense and kept a level head. "It's only a playful nudge, Councilor, nothing more than that."

"Still, keep it at your own time," Valern replied.

"_This is Captain Rissana to Councilor Tevos. Please respond!"_ the captain said quickly with urgency.

Everyone immediately turned to Tevos, the atmosphere becoming chillier.

"This is Tevos, what's wrong Captain?"

"_The representative team is being attacked! I'm going to connect the Specter to you now, including visuals."_

And with that, everyone in the room felt dread and worry forming in their minds.

"Affirmative, Captain."

Tevos began typing more commands on the interface, summoning a large holographic screen that can be watched from all angles.

It appeared to be blank but that changed when live feed began to be received.

To Anderson (and everyone) what he saw was some kind of large corridor, dimly lit with some beams of light that were definitely coming from omni-tools.

It was obvious that she was running, her tired pants were heard from the built-in speakers.

Things were getting bad.

"This is Councilor Tevos, what's going on Specter?" Tevos said with calm urgency.

"_Things are bad, Councilor. First Contact failed! These aliens are barbaric animals, they killed half of my squad!"_

"What happened to Representative K'Nir?"

"_She's behind me. We're making our way back to where we came. Hostiles are right behind us."_

"How far are you from your point of entry?"

"_Not far!" _The screen showed her make a sharp turn around a corner. _"We should be there soo-!"_

_**THUMP!**_

Something landed in front of the Specter, forcing her to a halt.

It was one of those unknown aliens.

The thing was bipedal, looked taller than a Turian and covered in some kind of armor.

However, Anderson couldn't make out any more details as the thing literally _lunged_ towards the Spectre.

L'Vari dove to side, the Representative let out a scream as she was dragged to do it too. More thuds were heard over the radio as they collided against the floor.

"_UGH!"_

The camera turned to where the scream came from, only to see a sight that horrified everyone in the room.

An Asari Commando was being held off the ground by a long blade that pierced through her stomach; it was attached to the alien's forearm, blood trickling down the its weapon.

Her body radiated in biotic energy and was about to launch a shockwave, but was interrupted when the alien summoned a blade from its other hand and immediately stabbed her with it.

And to everyone's horror, it pulled the weapon out of the Asari only to shove it back in a few more times in rapid succession.

The Commando could only scream as she kept getting stabbed over and over again.

Until finally, the glow around her died as soon as her body went limp, more of her own blood flowed out of her stab wounds and down to the floor.

The alien angrily threw the dead Asari on the ground and turned to glare at the camera, letting out a near-deafening shriek.

One of the surviving Commandoes hurled a ball of biotic energy at it, shoving it against the side wall and dazing it.

Everyone got up from the ground immediately, picked up their weapons and opened fire.

The alien let out a massive scream as it was set alight by a constant stream of gunfire. It brought its arms up to cover its head, shrugging from side-to-side as was still light-headed from being shoved to a wall.

Sparks nearly consumed the alien's body as countless rounds hit against its armored form, letting out painful wails and shrieks.

However, their gunfire didn't appear to pierce through the alien's armor. This became harder to tell with the constant flashing which made it much more difficult to see, but it was apparent they're causing it pain.

L'Vari's Carnifex seemed to be doing the most progress as she saw a few of her shots penetrating through the alien's armor and drew out blood.

The alien finally had enough. It let out a blood curling scream that echoed throughout the corridor and lunged to the closest Asari, slicing her in half with its long blades.

And then it turned its head to another Commando.

"_CORPORAL! GET OUT OF THE-!" _The Sergeant's warning was too late.

It lunged at the young huntress and sliced her head clean off her body before turning around to glare at the L'Vari and K'Nir.

As soon as it was about lunge at them, it found itself pushed back by a strong biotic blast.

The Councilors watched the alien on screen fly several meters back down the corridor before it hard against the floor, rolling and then quickly getting back on its feet.

And then it started running.

"_Everyone get out of here, I'll buy you time!"_ shouted the Sergeant before firing a singularity at the alien.

It reacted quickly by dodging the orb but was caught by surprise when it found itself being dragged by a large black sphere radiating in blue energy.

However, the singularity landed too far from the target which only slowed it down. After a few heavy steps, the alien broke free from the gravitational pull and began charging towards the group.

The Sergeant ran in front of everyone and immediately created a barrier, covering the ground she stood on in a shimmering bubble.

The alien 'bounced' off the barrier and fell on its back.

Growling in anger, it got back up and slammed itself against the bubble, the impact was strong enough to cause some kind of disturbance on its surface. Because of this, it began repeating this over and over again. . .

Each new attempt becoming stronger and more feral than the last.

"_GET OUT HERE! NOW!" _screamed the Sergeant as she kept her grip on the barrier.

Everyone in the chambers watched as L'Vari rushed back up on her feet with K'Nir being pulled up alongside her.

The Spectre turned around and immediately started running; one of the two surviving Commandoes taking the lead at the front.

"_This is Specter L'Vari to the Niacala, we're almost to the entry point. Requesting a shuttle for exfil. Over."_

There was no response.

"_I repeat: this L'Vari to the Niacala, requesting a shuttle!"_

Again, no response.

Even the Councilors were confused by this. Something wasn't right.

Tevos activated the comms. "Spectre, this is Tevos. Just focus on escaping that ship, I'll contact the _Niacala_." She typed several commands on the table, removing the screen that displayed the feed from L'Vari's camera. "Captain Rissana, this is Tevos. What's going on over there?"

There was no response.

"_Councilor,"_ Shepard began. _"The Normandy can reach them in no time."_

"And I will give the order, but I must find out with what's going on with the cruiser," Tevos replied as she continued to interact with the holographic interface, switching to a different channel. "Captain Rissana, please respond!"

Again, there was no response.

Tevos looked at Shepard and was about to give the order to commence a rescue but was interrupted when a new screen materialized before everyone.

It showed a close-up view of the cruiser's Captain which everyone assumed the feed came directly from her omni-tool.

Behind her was a group of the ship's security, all of them armed with various weapons and aiming them towards the main bulkhead that had been barricaded.

On the far sides, there were glimpses of the bridge crew trying to get out of the way and find cover, all of them on the brim of panic.

"_Councilor! We've been infiltrated by unknown hostiles!" _the Captain said in worry as she glanced back to the bulkhead. _"We don't know how, but they evaded our sensors and are taking over the ship!"_

Tevos muttered a silent curse to herself, things were getting bad. "Captain, the representative team are taking casualties as we speak. The survivors have been trying to radio for a shuttle."

"_Goddess. . . Councilor we have nothing to spare. These savages already killed most of my crew! We can't-!"_

_**BOOM!**_

The bulkhead was consumed in flame and smoke as a large piece of its frame went flying straight towards the Captain's face.

No one saw what happened next as the connection cut afterward, leaving a blank screen.

_CONNECTION LOST._

"Goddess. . ." Tevos frantically worked on the interface, beads of cold sweat beginning to drip down her head. "Spectre L'Var, this is Tevos. _Niacala's Light_ is lost. Shuttle is a no-go."

No reply came.

"This is Tevos to L'Vari, please respond!"

Still nothing.

"This is Tevos to L'Vari, please respond!"

Again, only silence.

Everyone's attention went to Valern as his omni-tool began beeping.

"I'm getting a high priority message from STG," he said as he activated his omni-tool. "Some ships appear to be coming back online."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. Hold on. . ." Valern typed ferociously on his omni-tool, additional screens materializing above his arm. "Visual scans detect their engines are active and heading straight for the planet. . . they just fired missiles!"

Shock and dread filled everyone's minds as they watched the Salarian Councilor.

"We lost a cruiser, the _SSV Toronto_."

"That's an Alliance ship," Anderson said with shock and venom. "Is anyone else getting hit?"

"No," Valern stated calmly, eyes focused on his omni-tool. "More and more those ships are getting back online but are heading to the planet."

"_It's apparent that planet is very important to them,"_ said Shepard. _"I say we fight back while most of their ships are still offline. It's pretty obvious they don't want diplomacy, and we can't take any more chances."_

"I agree," stated Tevos. This surprised everyone as she would normally hesitate on a notion like this. "I want everyone to contact the admirals of their respected governments and coordinate a retaliatory strike. But if there are civilians or noncombatants on those ships, but I _insist_ we spare any civilians or noncombatants found on those ships."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Good. If no one has anything to say, then this meeting is adjourned."

Anderson watched as the three Councilors left the chamber in an organized manner. None of them said another word to each other, only focused on getting their new duties.

This filled the room with a tense silence; a familiar sense of urgency.

Just like the Reaper War.

Once the doors closed, only Anderson was left along with Shepard and Tali.

Anderson let out an exhausted sigh. "The universe doesn't know when to give us a break."

Shepard nodded. _"And to think we would finally achieve true peace."_

"It's not going happen in our lifetime, apparently." Anderson breathed deeply. "I'm going to call Hackett and fill him in on everything he missed. And then I'll call Alliance Military Command."

"_Do you need me to be there with you?"_

"No." Anderson shook his head. "I need you to help coordinate with the Quarians. That ain't going to be an issue, Tali?"

Tali eagerly shook her head. _"Not at all."_

"Good. Call me or Hackett if anything changes."

The holographic forms of Tali and Shepard disappeared as soon as Anderson made his way to the door.

His omni-tool activated as he prepared a private call to Admiral Hackett.

Anxiety and frustration filled his mind because of the events that transpired but he was familiar with the feeling and kept a level head.

But one thing's for sure. . .

The galaxy will further change forever.

* * *

_**3350, Unknown Forerunner Shield World, North Continent, Northern Mountains**_

"Ugh. . ." Calem groaned as he slowly got himself off the ground, dirt pieces of burn foliage falling off his armor.

He glanced around, trying to get an idea where he was as his body recovered from the crash.

Trees surrounded him, their trunks nearly wide as houses and looked to be half the height as skyscrapers. Pieces of burning debris littered the area along with patches of grass that were combusting into small fires.

Calem looked up, only to see the skeer he piloted have half of its nose drilled into the trunk of the tree behind him, two kilometers up. The wings and tail were gone, leaving what's left of the craft look like a mangled mess.

And then he looked down to the ground beneath his feet, only to see a small but deep impact crater.

"Talk about a fall," he thought out loudly before inspecting his Bludgeoner.

He activated his x-ray imagining and looked around the area once more.

Dozens of Rahkoans were all around him in different areas of the forest. Some of them seemed to be gathering supplied from the crashed bombers he was targeting earlier; possibly the crew. And small teams were patrolling the surrounding environment as they held onto heavy weapons.

Calem put a firm grip on his Bludgeoner as he readied himself for combat.

"Time to get back to work."

* * *

**Codex Entries: Rahkoan Empire**

**Rahkoans:** Originating from the Extorus Galaxy, the Rahkoans are a species of rat-like mammals that evolved from the planet Rahkoa.

Ruled by a Grand Emperor and the Imperial Family, the Rahkoans are xenophobic militarists that have spent over the millennium conquering their own galaxy. Contact with other sapient extraterrestrial life always ended with extermination, rendering the extinction of so many races in Extorus.

The Rahkoans are extremely religious, living by strict and brutal doctrines that see's the Imperial Family as descendants of their gods, the Precursors, in the mortal plane. Any slight disrespect to them will immediately be considered blasphemous and met with horrible punishment.

They see themselves as the only ones "worthy" to inherit the universe, and all other civilizations are labelled as filth that must be cleansed.

Widespread genetic manipulation was accepted by the Rahkoan people with many sectors making it mandatory. At first, this was meant to help portions of the population survive the harsh conditions of the planet they conquered, but it slowly turned into popular mindset to "perfect" their species.

A vast majority of the Rahkoan population is genetically modified in some way, leading to many to have drastically different appearances. Some of them exhibit aggressive or abnormal mutations that twisted them disfigured or crippled in some way. However, as long as these mutations don't interrupt their daily lives, then they shall be ignored.

The Rahkoan Military implements stronger genetic augmentation on their personnel to become more effective combatants. This resulted in a vast array of different fighting forces that were modified for specific combat environments and purposes, essentially turning their people into living weapons.

**Rahkoan Trooper:** Formed from conscripts and volunteers, troopers are the essential component of the imperial war machine.

Given rigorous training and genetic augmentation, these basic front-line units were proven to be capable combatants against a variety of foes on multitudes of terrain. And while not as advanced as MWR technology, they are outfitted with powered armor that further augment their strengths to a degree and possess a layer of energy shielding.

**Rahkoan Strikers:** Genetically modified for increased speed and bloodlust, strikers are specialized units that focus on fast-paced hit-and-runs and brutality.

Equipped with lighter combat armor meant to further enhance their speed, these Rahkoans take delight in confusing or toying their prey before the kill. They rely on getting close to their enemies before cutting them to pieces with specialized wrist blades that could reach a meter in length. Because of this, they are often deployed to inflict terror to entrenched enemy positions or anywhere where close quarters combat is to be expected.

And even if they can't rely through melee, they are more than capable of using other Rahkoan weaponry or small arms.

Strikers are devastating killers with the bloodlust of rabid predators, and must never get in close proximity too.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Okay, here is the next chapter! Please take your time to enjoy the read and leave a review to tell me what you think.

I did some editing for the earlier chapters to fix some grammar mistakes and changed some things but nothing big; instead of the Rahkoan fleet being in the hundreds of thousands, I decreased it to thousands because that seemed like overkill the more I look at it. Plus, it wouldn't seem like a "remnant fleet" with that many ships.


	7. Chapter 7: New Shadows

_**2189, Sol System, Unknown Alien Vessel; One hour since vortex incident**_

Everything felt so cold.

Pain was all she could feel along with thin streaks of blood dripping down her head.

And something hard wrapped around her arms, the feeling of something dragging her away by force.

Slowly, L'Vari opened her eyes, her vision was nothing but filled by blurs before a wave of pain filled her mind and forced her to wince.

She clenched her teeth in agitation. She was a _Spectre_ damn it! She fought in the Reaper War! She was meant to handle the worse possible scenario, not fail it so easily!

The pain began to fade away, giving her the chance to slowly open her eyes again.

As expected, her vision remained blurry, dizziness began to set in, making her nauseous but she fought against it.

Her eyesight became clearer after each passing second, the pain and haziness that filled her mind slowly disappeared. However, her body still felt weak, riddled with cuts and burns that made it excruciating to move.

And then her vision was clear, again; the first thing she saw was the floor, moving underneath her as she felt her knees dragged on its surface.

She slowly brought her head up and looked at her sides, seeing two of the hostile aliens dragging her to somewhere deep within the ship; metal gauntlets pressed tightly against her skin.

One of them noticed that she was awake and alerted his comrade which he said something back in return.

Without warning, one of the aliens grabbed her by the back of her head and forced her face down, only seeing the floor.

They continued talking after that, speaking in their native language that L'Vari could not understand. It sounded aggressive and feral, however, there were moments that they spoke quite elegantly; a far cry than what she expected from them.

She noticed they stopped moving, the hardened grip on her neck lightened a little.

The alien on her left yanked her head upward, an action infuriated the Asari Spectre but she remained calm.

Before her was what she assumed to be their leader, and he was _big_. Easily dwarfing all of the aliens she saw earlier, his height around nine feet if her estimates were right.

He wore much more advanced armor in comparison to his subordinates but it was more refined, more ornate and colorful. Definitely meant to display meanings of importance, however, it still appeared it withstand the harshness of war.

L'Vari's attention immediately shifted away from the massive alien's armor right after he activated an _omni-tool_. Possibly from her or one of the Commandoes!

She watched him play around with the device, scrolling through text files, switching to different pages, and viewed images from the codex.

"**An intriguing device. Your people have come far,"** spoke the massive alien.

But this shocked L'Vari because he was speaking clear _English_! A _human _language!

Her armor's built-in translator was destroyed but she understood every word. Being proficient in a vast array in languages was a prerequisite for Spectres, along with the full capability to speak without technological aid.

But it further confused her why it needed to communicate her with a _human_ language.

"**Yet you understand so little, you have so much to learn." **He deactivated the omni-tool. His voice was deep and gravely, like the rest of his subordinates. But it held so much weight, so much authority and sophistication that his kin lacked.

The massive alien walked a few steps closer to her and knelt on one knee to have a closer look at her.

L'Vari assumed he was trying to get closer to eye-level with her, but wasn't really able too because of his size. Him being so close to her like this made her feel so small and nervous. She remained calm, not allowing such fears to be shown.

And then the alien took off his helmet, filling the atmosphere with the sound of pressurized air as he pulled it off; revealing the face underneath.

The alien possessed an elongated snout with fang-like teeth protruding from the sides. A layer of thin dark-greyish fur covered his head, intimidating dark amber eyes that fixated onto the Spectre, studying her with a predator-like glare.

L'Vari felt genuinely intimidated. This thing looked like it could tear a Krogan in half.

"**I know you understand me. I know you are an elite warrior according to your. . . codex." **

"Wha. . . what do you want with me?" L'Vari asked, but received an angry hiss from the aliens on her sides.

The massive leader said something in their native tongue that calmed them down.

"**I want you to answer my questions. Remain compliant and you will live. If you not, you will die horribly."**

Another alien from somewhere else in the room began calling out to the leader.

With one of the aliens holding onto L'Var's head, she couldn't turn it, but could hear the urgency from the other voice.

She watched the massive leader say some things to the unseen subordinate and then said something to the aliens holding her as he stood up.

She could tell that something big was happening and it spooked her captors. The Spectre already felt the urgency starting to spread, and she did not like it.

"**There appears to be unfolding events I must attend too,"** he said as he put his helmet back on. **"We will have to talk later. Remain compliant like I said, or we will feast on the meat off your bones."**

He said something to the two aliens that held her, most likely an order, before he turned around and walked away.

L'Vari felt her head pushed downward and felt herself being dragged away again. It was more rushed than last time, the two aliens holding her were walking faster than earlier.

As she was dragged, she heard the clamoring of more and more footsteps around her. More of these aliens were running around to and fro; they were all rushing and did it quite frantically.

Her experience as a Spectre gave her the familiar feeling that something _big_ was about to happen, and she had some guesses on what they could be.

But suddenly, everything around her shook.

The aliens holding her said something to each other and began running, forcing her legs to grind against the floor.

And then everything around them shook again, causing more worry to the aliens.

L'Vari couldn't help but smile at this, knowing that these barbarians were becoming afraid of something. She hoped she would get some kind of payback for what they did to her and Sioni squad earlier.

Thinking of the Asari she lost reminded her of Representative K'Nir. She never saw getting shot during their escape and became worried about her fate. Since they spared her, there's hope they spared the Representative.

But these thoughts were interfered when the ship shook again. This time, far more intensely.

* * *

_**3350, Unknown Shield World, North Continent**_

Kitha took a much needed drink from her flask before putting back on the cupholder beside her.

The churrel ride had been smooth for the most part, something that Kitha and everyone in her small convoy found surprising.

They expected to see friendly outposts be under siege but that was never the case. According to the senior officers in charge of those locations, all hostile armigers immediately retreated via teleportation as soon as the slipspace portal opened; something that still bewildered everyone in those outposts. Rahkoan forces have either gone into hiding or regrouped into unknown locations.

Kitha wasn't liking this at all. However, she was glad to see more of her fellow warriors alive and well despite everything that went on. She and her squad felt even better after they repaired their communication arrays, and know that the other garrisons suffered few casualties.

They've reestablished comm lines with four outposts ever since they left, and the garrisons in those locations said they'll send out scouts to reconnect with other allied positions.

They were no longer needed, Kitha and her squad accomplished their mission and were now on their way back to Outpost Deivas.

Kitha activated her radio through her TACPAD. "This is Urs Actual to Urs squad, calling for status reports."

"_Two-One is good, sister."_

"_Three-One is good."_

"Copy. So you read any unusual activity, Vorik?"

"_Nothing at all, sister. The outside is peaceful."_

"Remain on guard and report in any unusual activity."

"_Of course, sister."_

"_Yes, Chief."_

Kitha deactivated her radio and decided to look around the vehicle's interior out of rising boredom.

Guthras was on the turret in the middle of the vehicle, casually shifting and turning to inspect the outside environment. And Odell sat on the backseat, looking out the window as he held his SPAR on his lap.

She then turned to Haeiyo who focused on driving the churrel, the white fur on his head glowed from the sunlight that beamed through the window. This gave Kitha the urge to joke to him about it, but decided not to.

He was a non-Sangheili Ascetic, he was from a race of moth-like insectoid-mammalians that originated from the Extorus galaxy. Like the other races that came from his homeworld, his people were considered to be strong and beautiful with the heart of warriors. This easily gained them favor from the Sangheili as their cultural traditions were quite similar in some ways; many humans compare them to ancient Japanese. However, they tend to keep to themselves but were welcoming to outsiders.

Haeiyo was no exception to this, but he was known to be quieter and more distant by his own people; oftentimes took things a little too seriously.

"You're getting better at driving. Good job," Kitha said.

"I've been practicing."

"Through simulations?"

"Yes." His reply was monotone but serious, almost all of his attention was on the controls, eyes focused on driving through the terrain ahead.

Kitha leaned back on her seat, shifting her gaze to windshield.

"Have you talked to your family, recently?"

"Yes," he said with a nod, and then remained silent.

"Then tell me, how are they doing?"

"Just business as usual. Meeting delegates and discussing policies. Nothing else than that."

"Haeiyo," called out Odell from the back, his gaze not leaving the window. "One of your sisters' made headlines on the news, something about visiting a military hospital."

"I saw that," added Kitha. "She sang them a song through the intercoms."

"Yes," Haeiyo confirmed. "It's an old lullaby for injured warriors. It's meant to commemorate them for the sacrifices they've made."

"She said that in the interview, and is garnering a lot of fame for it. A lot of Sangheili are respecting her."

"It's going to make that lullaby famous too," said Odell.

"Yes," Haeiyo said stoically.

'_He's almost as stoic as John-117,'_ thought Kitha as silence loomed over them. _'Here's an idea. . .'_

"I have a question I want an answer to." This garnered a curious glance from Haeiyo. "Why can't you explain puns to kleptomaniacs?"

"That is a human joke," stated Odell.

"It is. Do you have an answer?"

"No."

"Guthras, do you have an answer," Kitha called out to the turret gunner.

"Not into that kind of humor," he replied as he kept scanning the outside environment around him.

Kitha returned her attention to Haeiyo. "Do you have an answer, Haeiyo?"

"No." He shook his head but it was obvious he was interested. "What is it?"

"It's because they always take things literally."

A small smile formed on Haeiyo as he tried not to laugh, earning a grin on Kitha. It was no secret that he always liked aspects human humor that was considered 'cheesey' as they put it.

She remembered another joke. "Why don't calculous majors have parties?"

"Why?"

"Because they can't drink and _derive_."

This brought out a soft laugh from Haeiyo, along with a smile to match.

"Why did the frog take the bus to work today? His car got toad away."

Haeiyo laughed even louder to this, nearly choking a few times.

Kitha smirked as she heard Odell groaned from the back.

"It surprises me how anyone would find those jokes funny," Odell said in an unamused tone.

"They're not that bad, Odell, and at least _someone_ appreciates my taste in humor," responded Kitha as she watched Haeiyo's laughing beginning to die down.

"There's better humor."

"Then tell us. You always said you know better jokes."

"I'll tell everyone when we're back at Deivas."

"That tells me you don't have any better jokes."

Odell responded with a groan and nothing else, silence filling the vehicle for some time.

"_Urs Actual, come in. Something's happening," _came in an urgent Sangheili.

Kitha quickly reactivated her TACPAD. "Report."

"_A battle is taking place in space, the explosions can be seen from here."_

"Do you see who they are attacking?"

"_Negative, sister. Whoever their opposition is, they're not in our visual range. Requesting to share live feed?"_

"No need, brother, we will manage to see from here. But remain on guard for anything."

"_Of course, Chief."_

Kitha turned off her radio and glanced around everyone in the churrel. "Weapon and armor checks, now. Get your helmets on."

Everyone complied with her orders without question as they made quick checks to their gear. Their helmets assembled around their heads, filling the vehicle with the sounds of shaping metal sheets.

Kitha connected her TACPAD with the churrel's computer, summoning a holographic screen infront of the dashboard.

"Checking on exterior cameras and sensors. Odell, Guthras, are you connected?" Kitha asked as she continued typing on her TACPAD.

"Yes," they both said simultaneously.

"Good. Receiving visual now."

After typing the last set of codes, the screen displayed a zoomed view of the outside sky. Everyone was silent as they watched a series of explosions flashed around the blue expanse. The explosions closer to the planet's atmosphere appeared more like fireballs, leaving traces of smoke and flying debris.

Kitha had the camera put into its highest zoom. The Rahkoan ships were still too far away, but at least they could see a portion of the fleet overhead, along with the action taking place.

Rahkoan ships that have regained engine power were trying to gather small groups as they were being attacked by an unknown party. Many Rahkoan ships were shown to be hit by large numbers of projectiles, however, they did not seem to inflict much damage as they fired back. A few of them couldn't handle the constant barrage of attacks, and eventually exploded from the damage. However, a vast majority of the fleet's casualties consisted of corvettes or light destroyers, but required so much concentrated fire to have one destroyed.

This told Kitha that the attacking party wasn't the MWR, as the weaponry used against the Rahkoan fleet was way too weak. She also noticed that many of the disabled ships were being left alone, but this could be that unknown party had to focus solely on the reactivated ships.

"Is it possible that some of our navy came through the portal?" asked Haeiyo.

"Impossible. Scans only detected Rahkoan ships, and it shouldn't take a _barrage_ to destroy a corvette," stated Odell.

_/RECEIVING PRIORITY TRANSMISSION FROM OUTPOST DEIVAS./_

"Opening transmission from Deivas. Stay on course, Haeiyo," said Kitha.

"Yes, Chief." He nodded.

_/OPENING PRIORITY TRANSMISSION./_

"_This is General 'Irosomai, report in."_

"This is Urs Actual. We saw what's happening in the stratosphere and are halfway to Deivas," Kitha replied.

"_Forget about returning to Deivas and take shelter in Outpost Fare. Things may become dangerous and I don't want you to remain in the open."_

"Affirmative, General. Is our outpost under attack?"

"_No, but I've already alerted all allied positions to prepare for combat. For now, go to Fare and aid our brethren there."_

"Yes, General." Kitha cut the transmission from Irosomai and switched it the squad's comm channel. "Urs squad, we will take shelter in Outpost Fare and provide assistance until further notice."

"They are right off in the distance, Chief," stated Haeiyo as pointed at a structure far away from them.

Kitha connected to the outpost's comm channel. "Outpost Fare, this is Urs squad. Come in."

"_We read you, Urs squad. We already cleared things with the General, the front doors will open for you,"_ replied a human operator.

"Affirmative, Fare. Thank you."

It didn't take long before they made it to the outpost, stopping right in front of the large bulkhead as it began to open.

Unlike Deivas, Fare was a prefab building designed and used by the MWR military. It was a rather boxy structure with some round curves on the sides, a far cry from the Forerunner structures on the planet. This was meant to make the building more modular and flexible to add modifications quickly and efficiently.

"_Get inside, Urs. The Lieutenant wants to see you."_

"Affirmative," Kitha replied as the small convoy drove into the outpost one by one, the entrance leading them underground.

After the last vehicle went inside, the bulkhead closed shut while the vindras defense turrets began scanning the environment around them.

The sky overhead slowly filled with more flashes, more explosions, as parts of debris began to hit the atmosphere.

* * *

_**2189, Sol System**_

"_Shit, shit, shit, shit!"_ Joker whispered to himself as he frantically worked the controls, swerving the _Normandy _around building-sized debris all while dodging through hordes of cluster missiles. And to think he had a few seconds to breathe, an alarm flared above his radar, alerting him that an enemy fighter was accelerating behind him. "Oh, come on!"

He hit the accelerator on the _Normandy's_ engines to get away from the enemy fighter, having to narrowly dodge more debris, other friendly ships, and _explosions_! Despite his best attempts, the fighter was still right behind him.

"_Warning: incoming missile," _warned the _Normandy's _VI.

Joker looked at the radar again, seeing the missiles as two small white blips quickly getting closer and closer to the ship. "Damn it!"

He added more speed on the engines to get as far away from those missiles as possible. He drove the ship into another part of the debris field that apparently had plenty of derelict ships. Like earlier, he swiveled and looped around pieces of ship parts in hoping that the missiles would hit one of them. His prayers were answered when one of the missiles _did _hit a huge chunk of metal and exploded, consuming the area around it in a large fireball.

"Yes!" Joker cheered to himself as he saw one of the white dots disappear from the radar. This immediately changed when he looked out the viewport to see he was about to go head first onto an inactive ship. "Oh shit!"

The pilot reacted quickly hitting the deceleration and drove the ship downward, just missing the other vessel by a dozen a meters. After that, he went back to avoiding the fields of debris around him, swiveling and looping around metal parts nearly the size of the _Normandy_.

"_Warning: incoming missile."_

"I _know_!" Joker replied in annoyance as he navigated the ship through the debris field. He glanced the radar, seeing the red blip ever getting closer to the ship's right side.

There was less debris the more he dove down, but he couldn't take the chance for turning on the acceleration, again. There were still large starship chunks around them to make that a bad idea.

_**BOOM!**_

The _Normandy _shook violently from the explosion, forcing many of the crew in the CIC to scream in fear as they either fell on the ground or were thrown off their chairs.

"What just happened?" Joker asked as he saw what seemed to be a clearing up ahead.

"_The missile collided with a piece of debris,"_ the VI responded monotonously. _"Warning: starboard has received extensive damage."_

"Any hull breaches?"

"_Negative. Detecting rising temperatures beyond safe levels. Sensors also detect armor plates are melting."_

"Well, that's just _great_!" Joker growled in clenched teeth. "What about that fighter?"

"_Hostile strikecraft broke off pursuit four minutes and fourteen second-"_

"Okay, okay, I get it."

The _Normandy _finally flew out of the debris field, before it changed course to head back to the fleet.

Things were bad, really bad. Actually, things were going to shit if Joker had to be honest.

They severely downplayed the strength of these ships. Even with the use of heavy firepower, it was very taxing to destroy just one of their smallest ships; and 'smallest' as in the ones no bigger than half a kilometer! A single one of those vessels were capable of destroying _dozens_ of Coalition ships with ease. It didn't help that more of them were slowly coming back online.

So far, only the smallest of ships were reactivating while the big dreadnaughts stayed dormant. Joker really hoped those things _never_ come back online, they were already having massive casualties by facing the smaller ships. Everything right now was a chaotic _bloodbath_, and there was still the next phase of the operation!

"Joker! What's going on?" came in Shepard from behind. The _Normandy_ pilot couldn't afford the time to even glance at him as he had to focus on the controls.

"Chaos, that's what it is. We were getting tailed by a fighter, I had to lose it in the debris field."

"And all that shaking?" Shepard asked.

"From a missile. It didn't get us but it exploded near us. We sustained some nasty damage on our starboard but no hull breaches."

"Could the ol' girl still handle any more hits?"

"She's still up to take more abuse, Captain, but we'll need to be more careful." A monitor beeped from his, alerting him of a high priority transmission from Hackett. "Incoming transmission from Admiral Hackett. Putting it through."

Hackett's voice came urgently through the comms, _"This is Hackett to Normandy, come in Normandy."_

It was Shepard who responded with, "This the _Normandy_, we read you."

"_What the hell are you doing that far out, Shepard?"_ Hackett asked irritably, alarms blaring from his end of the comms.

"We were being pursued by a fighter, sir, we had to evade it in the debris field," Shepard explained. "The _Normandy _is en route back to the fleet. What's your status?"

"_Not good. More alien ships are coming online and our losses are getting higher. We just lost two of our carriers."_

"Damn it!" Shepard nearly shouted in clenched teeth. "How badly will this affect the invasion force?"

"_Marginal, we still have plenty of troops for the ground assault. I had them posted further away from the fighting with additional protection."_

"And our opening?"

"_It's a wide birth now, Shepard. We managed to get these aliens to retreat to the sides, but that may not last long. This is our chance to send in the ground invasion. Are you and Normandy still operational?"_

"We are, Hackett. We've come too far to pull out now." Shepard said with fiery determination that hasn't been seen since late stages of the Reaper War. "Get the landing parties ready for planetfall. We'll be there soon."

"_Affirmative, Shepard. Hackett out."_

Shepard turned to the pilot, giving him the familiar look of fiery determination, yet still maintained an air of professionalism. "Double time it, Joker."

"Yes, sir!" Joker punched the ship's accelerator and drove the engines to overdrive.

* * *

**Authors Notes:** It's been a long time since I uploaded a chapter, so here you go and enjoy the read! ^w^

I apologize for the wait, been having a lot trouble with life recently, which has affected my time to write.

And I won't be doing any Codex entries for a while; I find them unmotivating to do, and such a chore. I may do a separate page about them some day.

Again, enjoy the chapter! ^w^


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